“You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”
- The World Economic Forum, “8 predictions for the world in 2030”
In Genesis chapter 11, we read about sinful man’s first attempt to build a global empire in disobedience to God in the form of the Tower of Babel. Here, we read, “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
This was in contradiction to the command of God, who reiterated to Noah the same order given to Adam, namely, to be fruitful and to fill the earth (see Genesis 9:1). Rather than obeying God, these men of Babel preferred to “make a name for themselves” by building a city and a tower. We tend to focus on the tower but note well that the plan was to build a city as well as a tower “whose top may reach unto heaven.” The city, of course, implies a permanent dwelling. In this case, a permanent dwelling “of the whole earth,” which is to say the entire population of the earth. This was the world’s first idolatrous, global empire. An empire that God quickly brought to an end, scattering the people “abroad from there over the face of all the earth.” After this, the men of Babel “ceased building the city.”
In his sermon on Mars Hill, the Apostle Paul tells gives us additional information related to why God scattered the men of Babel. He wrote that God “preappointed” the time and boundaries of men’s dwellings. He did this, Paul tells us, “so that they should seek the Lord.” Rather than taking solace and pride in their own achievements, as men of great empires are wont to do, God has decreed that men are to dwell in nations, mind their own business, and seek him.
But sinful man did not learn his lesson at Babel. Over the following millennia, man would make other attempts to constitute a global empire. Some of these attempts are recorded for us in the pages of Scripture. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome all took their shots.
Lux Lucet 