Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of LifeExemplo

The idol of idols is the idol of self. Human pride always stands in opposition to the glory and plan of God.

The Tower of Babel is both one of the strangest and one of the best-known biblical stories. “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth’ ” (Gen. 11:4). Most people will tell you they’ve heard of the Tower of Babel. But few really understand the significance of this moment in the biblical story and its importance for every one of us today.

The will of the Creator was that the people he made in his image would live in humble, obedient, and dependent community with him and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The problem is that sin causes human beings to hunger for independence and self-sufficiency, to quest more for their own glory than the glory of God, and to live according to their own will rather than for the plan and purposes of God. It is these three things that initiated and motivated the building of a tower to the heavens. It was built as a monument to human glory, as a declaration of independence from God, and as a replacement plan for God’s “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Human pride is an enemy of the glory and plan of God. God therefore acted to confuse the languages of these people so they could not communicate with one another but would scatter. This is the Lord of lords saying, “I am the Lord. I alone reign and my will will be done.”

Upon reading this story, here is what you and I should confess: we still build towers to our glory and our independent wisdom, righteousness, and strength. “How?” you may ask. Any time we take credit for what only God could have done or produced, we have built a tower to our glory. Any time we step over one of God’s moral boundaries, telling ourselves we’re smarter than God, we’ve built a tower to our glory. Any time we act like grace-graduates, no longer in need of God’s rescuing, forgiving, and transforming grace, we’ve built a tower to our glory. Any time we act as if our life, our gifts, and our resources belong to us to use as we wish, we’ve built a tower to our own glory. Could it be that there are ways in which we are more like the people in Genesis 11 than unlike them?

The story of Babel is one of rescuing grace. The pride that erected this tower is the same pride that necessitated the erection of the cross on which Jesus died. Sinners need to be rescued from themselves and transformed by grace from those who crave their own glory to those who humbly and joyfully live for the glory of God. This rescue is still needed by each of us as much as it was in that dark moment in Genesis 11.

For further study and encouragement: Psalm 53:1–6