TOWER OF GOOGLE?

Picture this:

You're out with friends, enjoying a lively conversation. Someone casually asks, "I wonder if it's still snowing in Colorado?" Then, three people whip out phones and start typing furiously. The conversation continues. Several minutes later, someone says, "Yes." You are puzzled but then realize your friendly banter has been "google-ized"......your conversation among friends has been over-taken with up-to-the-minute facts.

Has Google become the new Tower of Babel?

Read Genesis 11 for a Biblical account of a time when mankind tried to become smart like God. It was four generations after Noah--after God had destroyed nearly the whole earth because of mankind's sin.

Noah's descendants spoke one language and settled the region called Shinar on the plain of Babylonia, between those two famous rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. The people multiplied and developed a booming city with skilled craftsmen.

Trouble was, they got a little full of themselves and decided to build a city with a huge tower "...that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11: 4) 

This was human endeavor, full of human pride. It was self-glory instead of God-glory.

Do we do that today? The Internet allows us to wonder about nothing! Whatever question arises, there's an answer right at our thumb-tips.

Be assured, I believe in the power of knowledge, learning, and education--I'm a teacher, remember!

However, does our quest to know, understand, or explain interfere with faith and trust in God?

Adam and Eve got us into all sorts of trouble because they couldn't resist the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." (Genesis 2:16)

Those who attempted the Tower of Babel soon came under God's discipline when he said, "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." (Genesis 11:7) That pretty much:

• stopped the building
• caused them to scatter over the known world (something they didn't want to happen)
• gave birth to Foreign Languages 101.

I believe God instilled in each of us the ability to create, learn, discover, etc. After all, we are made in his image. However, I continually ask myself, "When do I need to know for sure and when do I trust God for what I don't know?"

 Apply the pride of "needing to know" to modern life. Where is the wonder, the mystery, the call to trust God even when we don't know his specific answers. It's a tough line to walk.


BTW: I did use Google to research the Tower of Babel....also, two very old commentaries collecting dust on my bookshelf: Halley's Bible Handbook (1962) and The New Unger's Bible Handbook (1984). I, too, have been "google-ized"!