Outline // Sunday School #4: The Tower of Babel

• Genesis 10 is an ethnographic (scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits, and mutual differences)…70 peoples. The bible is still focused on ALL of humanity at this point.  Genesis 10 is a genealogy of people who become the ancestors of key players throughout the Bible.
• Genesis 11 is about humanity unifying under their own power again…and the scattering of nations
• Genesis 12 is where the Bible shifts it’s focus, to one family. (our family!)

Genesis 11 // The Tower of Babel
11 At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. 2 As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.

3 They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”

5 But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. 6 “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! 7 Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”

8 In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.

God told humanity to “fill the earth” by starting families, but instead they chose to all stay together in cities, and “fill the earth with violence.”  Repeating the same cycle, all over again.

We rely on OURSELVES far too much, and on GOD far too little.

“Babylon represents an alternate humanity, whose “head” is in the skies, as well as a false Eden. This is humanity’s attempt to deify its own cultural heritage and homogenize humanity and make everything “one.” - article linked at the bottom

Babylon is mentioned by name six times in the Book of Revelation (14:8, 16:19, 17:5, 18:2, 18:10, 18:21). In chapters 14–18, where the city serves as a symbol for a wicked, end-times world system and a center of idolatry that falls just before the Second Coming of Christ.  So when we know what Babylon actually was in the beginning, we have a much better idea of what it will be (or already is becoming!) in the end times before Jesus comes back.  


Romans 13 // Respect for Authority
13 Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.

Rebellion is useless.

Isaiah 55:11 says, It is the same with my word.
    I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
    and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”

Pride is dangerous.

Moving through life as if there are no limits, is CONFUSING. We need limits!

We're all doomed without Jesus.  We NEED Jesus!