I haven't blogged in a LONG time, but need a place to put my thoughts. This morning, I was listening to The Bible Project podcast about the Family of God. Dr. Tim Macke and Jon Collins are in the middle of exploring the Family of God when they focus in on Genesis 10-11. Genesis 10 is probably an often skipped over chapter, as it lists a sort of genealogy listing all the nations that came out of Noah's sons. Genesis 11 then talks about the tower of Babel and how the different people were scattered and different languages were created.
This story, as Tim and Jon point out, closely reflects the earlier story in Genesis of when Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve are one. They came from the same flesh. Eve is one half of Adam, taken from him. They are unified as one. Adam and Eve are also the image of God. Unified, they are the image of God. They get their identity from God.
In the story of the first sin, Adam and Eve looked at the fruit and decided that they wanted to be like God and have their own knowledge of good and evil. Until that moment, their identity was in God alone. After that moment their identity was in themselves. They realized they were different from each other, and were ashamed enough to hide. There was a brokenness in the oneness they had previously experienced. That was in addition to the brokenness between them and God. While they were still made in the image of God, something had changed...
Fast forward to the tower of Babel story. The people are multiplying and filling the earth, but they all speak the same language. They are still one with each other. However, they decide to try to build their own image rather than relying on themselves as an image of God for their power and strength. They decide to build a tower with it's "head" in the sky. They wanted to build their own image. Genesis 11:4 says, "Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves..." Their focus is not on God, but rather on themselves.
Social media is doing the same to us today, particularly to our children who don't know a life without it. They find their identity in how many Likes they get or how many Followers they have or how many Views of a video or photo they have. My daughter had someone follow her on Instagram, and she screenshotted the person and texted it to her friend saying, "look how many followers he has, and he followed ME" like that was some great accomplishment on her part.
Social media is causing us to focus more on building a name for ourselves. In essence, social media platforms are like us building a modern day tower of Babel. Our focus is not on God and being His image, but rather our focus is on building an image for ourselves.
What happened in the Tower of Babel story? God saw what the people were doing and said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." and he scattered them all over the earth, confusing their language, so they would stop building the city and tower.
How much longer will God allow us to make a name for ourselves before he scatters us and confuses our language. We all need to become unified as one image of God for His glory rather than trying to make a name for ourselves.
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