Get Real November 23 Devotional
November 23, 2024
GENESIS 10:1, 32 | This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, who themselves had sons after the flood.
These are the families of Noah’s sons, according to their genealogies, in their nations; and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.
One of the great questions posed in Genesis 1:11, is the relationship to the nations. One great takeaway is that God is the father of all people, and there is a fundamental unity deeper than cultural and racial differences. This is the message of the early chapters, where all people came from a set of single parents, a unified gene pool.
Genesis 10 and 11 stand in some tension on the question of the nations. The table of nations in Chapter 10 doesn’t seem to fit with the single people and single language premise of Chapter 11. But theologically, the combination is profound. Chapter 10 affirms the value of natural and cultural diversity . Chapter 11, the tower story, suggests that cultural projects independent or hostile to God will ultimately be short lived and divisive. Human lives and communities flourish in grateful dependence on God and not when their ambitions are unlimited. The Nazis were anti-religious and sought a Thousand-Year Reich. They lasted a decade and a half. The original communist movement wanted to bring about permanent utopia and an end to regular history. It lasted a generation and a half.
How do you think about nations within God’s Purpose?
The church is multinational—what do you think of that?
