Why the title?
The story of the Tower of Babel (from Genesis 11) is apt because it the story of man’s arrogance:
“Come, let build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven,and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (Gen. 11:4)
Though God had directed the descendants of Noah to disperse and fill the earth, they instead decided to band together and build a tower to demonstrate their own greatness. It seems to me that we do the same things today. We create new technologies faster than we know how to properly use them. We look to biotechnology, the Internet, mobile phones, and other technologies to make life easier, to make life longer, but ultimately, these “staggering gods” will fail us. True meaning for life can only be found through faith, and those of us that are of faith must have a voice in how these technologies should be used.
I am no Luddite. I appreciate and support the use of technology as a way to improve our society. I just want to ensure that we are taking the time to properly understand what we are unleashing. Before we look to build our next tower, we should first understand what God has to say.
This blog is a way to help me understand my own thoughts on these subjects. I really don’t know if anyone will ever read it. I invite your thoughtful comments if you happen to stumble across this space.
2 Comments to Why the title?
Dave… Excellent start. You’re off and running… which is more than the Babelites were doing. Jesus didn’t call us to build our towers bigger — He called us to go out. Personally, I believe we can make the mistake of building our internet church site taller and taller, when we should be extending them outwardly… pervasively in our community. The Church is the people — so the Church web strategy should be to extend their impact through the extensiveness of their people ‘going out’ as you did… and starting a site. Get ‘out there’. God’ll show you what to do. Connect with others, as you’re doing. Become the ‘body of Christ’ joined together for impact… and I’ll suggest LOCALLY… “City Blogging”, if you will. [Our workshop topic at Biola in October! Hope to meet you then. Say hi to Matt.]
Blessings.
Neil
LovingChange.com
IndyChristian.com
Blogs+News=Blews.net
dialegomaiApril 18, 2007
This is a provocative thought that really makes us think. It seems to me that we have the tendency to always try to do things in the opposite direction from God. Probably many or our church programs follow the “Babel model”. I really appreciate the insight Dave gave us. Let as be aware of the “Bable Model”.
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Welcome to the Lessons From Babel blog
This blog is where I share the latest thoughts on the world of technology and faith. Feel free to join the conversation by leaving a comment. To find out more about me, my company, and this web site, or to see what resources are available on this site, click on the images right below this.
- Dave Bourgeois
June 10, 2005