Welcome to the Love and Context podcast, unscripted conversation with Ben and Spence.
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Welcome to the Love and Context podcast with Ben and Spencer.
This is an unscripted conversation.
We're going to try to do the intro different every time, just to mess with you literally
every time.
Just no, no other reason.
Like next week is probably going to sound very different, but don't worry about it.
It'll be okay.
One, actually this week it sounds very different because we have good equipment now.
I know, we actually have decent equipment at this point and all this stuff.
Your sister's probably going to listen to this and be like, I like the way their voices
sounded before.
Now it's terrible.
She will, but that'll be okay.
We're leaving that in by the way, and she's going to listen to it and be like, no, you
called me out.
Oh, it's the first of many times.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I've gotten plenty of notices about what she thinks about my voice.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
So I'll... Yeah.
Actually it's not so much my voice that she cares about, it's my content.
She likes your content.
I know she does.
I'm just being funny.
I don't even actually... What's your sister's name?
I'm not going to say it on the podcast.
Oh yeah.
I'm going to call her Guinevere.
Okay, Guinevere.
That feels appropriate.
That's so perfect.
Yeah.
I have no idea.
No idea.
So anyways, here we are.
And this is like the longest intro.
I think we're like a minute and a half in and we haven't even gotten to...
Substantially.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So we're in Genesis chapter 11 and it is just 10 verses in there.
If you have not read The Tower of Babel, once again, newfangled technology, push pause,
go read it and then come back here and it's going to be like you never left.
If you are driving in your car, you can pause and listen to it later or you can listen now
and then go back and read the story.
But make sure that you're familiar with these stories when you're writing to us because
we have been reading these and ruminating on them and reading some different material.
So our assumption is you're going to do the same.
Yeah.
This story is very interesting on a number of fronts.
One, it's a really short story, right?
It's not like the flood narrative which we covered last week.
Yeah.
The flood narrative is really tall.
Yeah.
Short.
Yeah.
Thanks for that.
You're welcome.
It's not like the flood narrative, it's not like the story of Abraham, which we're going
to get into in a few weeks.
It's just nine verses is what it is.
Yeah.
Then there's just so much wild debate about it.
So one of the first things we noticed in this story is it's not what a lot of people have
told us it is.
Okay.
Because very frequently, if you talk about Tower of Babel, the way people are going to
tell a story is they're like, oh yeah, humanity came together, they're trying to build a tower,
and God didn't like it, so he confused their language so they couldn't do it anymore.
And if you think that, well, you're wrong.
And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to say... Like on a broad level, you're correct, but on a
very specific level, on a more real level, you're wrong.
And we need to talk about that.
So first of all, one of the things I saw here is it says the whole world had one language
and a common speech.
So not only did they speak the same language, they talked about things the same way.
Right?
Vernacular was the same.
And the people were moving eastward.
Now what's the problem with moving east?
We've talked about this.
Where is Eden?
Yeah.
According to the text, like on a broad level.
We don't really know.
Well, it's west.
Yeah.
Because they keep moving east, so it has to be west.
Yeah.
I mean, we don't really know where it is, but if God's intention is to come back to
the garden, is to actually restore relationship, people are always moving the wrong way.
Cain goes to the east, they're going to the east.
At some point, you got to go back west.
Yeah.
Right?
And it's interesting to me is that in this story, there is this double usage of Hebrew
where they ask two questions.
And we've talked about this, but I don't...
Yeah, I don't think we've talked about it on the podcast.
No, we haven't talked about it on the podcast.
Can you kind of give them a rundown of what that is?
Yeah.
So the double usage of Hebrew.
So a lot of times in Hebrew text, or when it's translated to English, you'll hear it
said, read like, hey, so and so said, and it'll be a sentence or two.
And then they said, it'll be a sentence or two.
Essentially what's happening there is there's actually a passage of time between those two
sentences.
Right.
We don't know how much time.
Yeah.
We don't know how much time, but those are two different sentences that are actually
said at two different times.
Yeah.
And we're dealing with pre-paper societies, right?
Like where paper is not an available commodity.
So actually writing these things down is very difficult, so they're going to use all their
space.
Yeah.
And so there's literary rules on how to make sure that people know what time has gone by
without actually having to write it.
Yeah.
Right?
Now, why is that important?
Because right here in verse three and verse four, we actually see it happening almost
right away.
All right.
So they said to each other, come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly because thoroughly
baked bricks is what you want.
Yeah.
They used brick instead of stone and tar for mortar.
Then they said, okay, now I want to pause there because I've had a conversation with
people who talk about this particular passage, then they use it to attack the development
of technology or the advancement of humanity.
Stop doing that.
Yeah.
That's not what the story is talking about.
Like, don't believe me.
Like, the brick is the new iPhone, right?
At this point.
And they say, hey, we're going to take bricks and we're going to bake them thoroughly and
we're going to use bricks instead of stone and tar and mortar.
And it's a new development in technology.
And then they say again, which means there's a passage of time.
So what does God say about that?
He says absolutely nothing.
Yeah.
It's not a problem.
Like having technology is not a problem.
What you do with the technology might be a problem because look in verse four, 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.
Otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
Okay.
Here's a problem.
You're not supposed to build cities.
You're supposed to be being fruitful and multiplying, subduing the earth and filling it.
Yep.
You're supposed to be scattered everywhere.
That's your long-term goal is to actually be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth and
fill it so that all of the world is under God's rule and reign.
And they're like, nah, no, not about that.
Now that we got these newfangled bricks, how are we going to build a tower that reaches
to heaven?
We'll make a name for ourselves rather than what God wants to do for us.
And technology isn't the issue.
You relate that to modern day society.
We got phones.
We have computers.
We can get information at the tap of a button.
It's so quick, so easy to get information.
The issue is what do we do with that information?
Yeah.
Right.
And so when it comes to spreading the gospel, the good news of Christ or talking about scripture
and its content and its contextual purpose, how we use that is important.
How often do people in the pursuit of Christ use technology?
The very same thing podcasts that we're using right now to actually just tear down other
people than to actually promote Christian living and Christ-like righteousness, right?
That the whole goal is supposed to be about sharing the gospel and enlarging the kingdom.
And all we're doing is defining who's in and who's out, which, I mean, correct me if I'm
wrong, isn't our job.
No, it's not.
So technology is not an evil.
What you do with it can be good and evil.
And by the way, can we just say that's also true for emotions?
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
I always think about people that are like, oh, well, anger is a sin.
I was like, no, no, what you do with anger is a sin.
Because there's a statement in the Bible, in this thing that we read that says, in your
anger do not sin.
Okay.
Well, you can't say that unless it's possible to be angry and not sin.
Right?
So we're getting into the idea of sinful nature a little bit.
Right?
Yeah.
And there's also lots of opinions on that.
So Ben and I are very blunt, direct personalities.
It's true.
Like, we are like, give us the facts, tell us what we need to know.
And oftentimes, I will tell people to do something and they'll look at me and be like, oh, what
just happened?
And I was like, I just asked you to do something.
Like, in my mind, it's no big deal.
But what I do with that bluntness can actually really tear people down if I'm not careful.
That's true.
And I've heard a lot of people in my life because of that.
And even though I'm at no ill harm whatsoever.
Right?
So I guess my hard part about the technology thing when we're coming back to Babel is,
are you using this to build people up?
Are we using technology for the purposes of connection, growing the kingdom and all those
things because otherwise it starts to become a hindrance.
It actually starts to, it's either leading us to the garden or away.
And so let's pick on something that's really common in the post-COVID era and specifically
in the COVID era.
Live streaming church.
Right?
Like, I'm about to hit some of you right in the fields and I apologize for that because
this is meant for encouragement, but more like just like, what are we doing long term?
Yeah.
You know?
So on one side, when we were dealing with the COVID restrictions, man, it was a godsend.
Oh yeah.
Right?
Because we couldn't meet.
Right?
And you know, obviously there's going to be debate about like, should a church stay open?
We're not talking about that today.
We talked about that in episode one, you are entitled to your own opinion.
You're not entitled to your own opinion on grace.
You have grace with people, especially when you disagree.
So and then there's other sides of it too, is like, if our kids are sick in the morning
and like, we're not going to take them to church to go convolvulate the other kids.
Right?
And we still want to engage and hear what's going on.
We can stay at home and actually like catch up and stay with our church and worship along
and hear the word from our house.
Right?
But what's the other side of that?
The other side of it is a lot of people have used that to step out of fellowship.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, and this is, this is kind of one of those things where I've heard people push
back on this passage and be like, well, does it really mean what it says it means?
And we can have that conversation, but like in this passage, you have a group of people
who are together, who are unified.
How often do we pray for that?
Right.
Like, can we be honest?
Can we ask this question?
That's part of the thing.
That's part of what we're supposed to do.
But how often do we pray for that?
How often do we pray for it or how should we actually pray into that?
Yeah, there's a difference.
Yeah.
And so, but with this, with this idea is we've had people with this idea of like live stream
church, we've had people step out of fellowship.
We've been like, oh, well, I quote unquote went to church.
And then what they do is before too long, they realize that they actually have no Christian
fellowship in their lives.
Right.
And now I'm not saying that everybody who stepped out and have stepped just into live
streaming is forsaking every ounce of Christian fellowship in our lives.
That's not what I'm saying.
But I am saying that it can lead to that if we're not careful.
Right.
Well, and I think you would agree with this, like church is a communal experience.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a lot of people, their churches do have different focuses, but on a general
level, Sunday morning is for the believers to come together and worship God and to be
empowered to go on scattered throughout the week.
Yes.
Right.
For the pastors to equip the saints.
Yes.
For ministry.
Yes.
And, you know, the interesting thing is it's not just church that we do that with.
I mean, a lot of our discipleship, a lot of our disciplines that we do as Christians,
we've moved from a corporate level to an individual level.
For example, the study of Torah or the ketuvim, which have been the entire Old Testament,
used to be done in a group of people.
Right.
Like, it was a regular part of the synagogue services.
It was a regular part of just Torah study in general.
It was regular discussion in the families with your bros, with your gals, you know.
And this was a part like you didn't do it by yourself because how arrogant would you
have to be to read the word of God by yourself and interpret it?
Uh huh.
That's not really how we do it today.
No, it's not.
Right.
And there, I mean, I don't want to also, I don't want to poo poo on everything we do
today.
Right.
Because I think there's like incredible benefit to being able to get into the nitty gritties
of the Greek and the Hebrew stuff that you couldn't necessarily do with all groups of
people because they would be like, they'd be like my wife when I started talking about
her, like her eyes glaze over, she's like, oh, when's he going to stop talking?
You know, it's not that she doesn't find it interesting.
She doesn't find the minutia interesting.
Right.
Well, I remember one time we were having a conversation and your wife was there and she's
like, this doesn't interest me.
It just walks away.
It was so great.
Yeah, no, it's and honestly, she's got to do it because like I can get stuck on like
small points.
Yeah.
It's actually really interesting, sometimes we'll be talking about something in the in
the word and I'll talk about like the small little thing and she's like, well, I don't
understand why it's important.
And I'm like, I was like, oh, it's so important because it has a little effect down here.
She's like, okay.
Right.
And man, you know, the thing about my wife is she does not like diving into the minutia
like I do.
Yeah.
But she will also drop some profound knowledge and not even like, like just out of nowhere.
I remember I was doing this sermon prep once and I was going through and I was studying
and studying and studying and I walked her through everything I was saying.
She's like, oh, so it's basically this.
And I was like, yeah, that's better.
That's way better.
And and I was like, it was so much better because that's my wife has just like incredible
like emotive knowledge.
Yeah.
Right.
Intelligence.
Right.
So when you do these things by yourself, like you and I have talked about this, right?
When we when we're prepping, when we're talking about gospel presentation or preaching on Sunday
morning or just doing life.
I mean, when we try to do it by yourself, we miss out.
Oh, so much, so much.
We're not called to do this by ourselves.
Now I want to be really clear.
I'm a firm believer that church happens beyond Sundays.
Right.
In America, specifically, we have moved to this idea where we just do church on Sundays.
It's like, no, that's not how the church is supposed to work.
We're supposed to be in the community 24 seven.
Right.
We're supposed to be there day in and day out.
We're supposed to be there for fellow believers day in day out doing life together and ministering
to our community and drawing our community closer to Christ.
That's the purpose of church.
And so I don't want to I want to be very clear on that.
But when we step out and say, well, I don't need the church to do this.
Guess what?
You just stepped out of all accountability.
You just stepped out of all fellowship.
You just stepped out of doing this as a team.
You just stepped out of doing this as a family.
And you just said, I'm better than you.
I don't need you.
You know, the hard thing about that is almost every time when somebody says that the opposite
is true.
Yeah.
Right.
So in this idea with Babel, I was like, technology is not a bad thing.
Like we talk about live streaming, right?
When you use it as a way to disconnect from the body.
Yeah.
When you use that as a way to put six feet metaphorically between you and your neighbor.
Like you cross a threshold where it's no longer about technology and what's about what technology
is actually doing to you.
Yeah.
Technology can be a great way to express like feelings like you use it go through.
But man, when it starts affecting you, too, there's an issue.
So basically, they come together and they come up with new technology and God's fine
with it.
But then they say, we're going to sit in one spot.
We're not going to scatter like we're supposed to.
We're going to build our own name.
We're going to build a tower and basically make God obsolete, which is hilarious because
everything is held together by him.
And God says, man, he comes down, he sees the city and the tower they're building.
He says, if as one people speak in the same language, they began to do this, then nothing
they plan to do would be impossible for them.
Now, I think when we read that, we have the tendency to be like, oh, God realizes that
they could actually rival him.
This is once again, this connects us to this idea back in Cain and Abel, right?
Yeah.
Where you have a monster waiting outside of your door and you can conquer it.
The problem is you're not going to.
And if I don't stop this, you're going to be broken and we're not going to be able to
fix you.
Like we've talked about that with our children is like, they're like, oh, you don't love
me because you won't let me eat seven donuts.
Listen, if you eat seven donuts, then we're going to have two buckets of vomit.
Right.
And I think the math works on that now.
For four year olds, absolutely.
Yeah.
As like, I absolutely love you.
And that's why I won't let you have seven donuts.
Here's the interesting thing too.
So in verse six of this passage, Genesis 11 verse six, this is a new living translation.
It says, look, he said being the Lord, the people are united.
They all speak the same language after this.
Nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them.
And we just talked about this a little bit, but let's just hit on just one more.
We do this in church all the time.
We're praying for this.
We want to be, we're praying for unification.
We're praying that we're speaking the same language.
We're praying that there's nothing that's impossible for us.
The problem is, is when we take that and sit our butts still in a room by ourselves and
don't actually take what we have out into our community, that's where God steps in.
Right.
And it's like, no, no, no, no.
Well, and let's, let's even take it a step from there.
So you and I know as well as I do.
So God refuses their language.
Okay.
You and I know as well as many people who have, if you encountered somebody who is not
a native English speaker, okay.
We have a couple in our church from South Korea, right?
And when we talk to them, it requires a lot of thinking to make sure we're communicating
on the same level.
I told them one time that it's raining cats and dogs out and they looked at me and they're
like, that makes no sense.
Right.
And I was like, you're right.
That does make no sense.
But most of the idioms we use make no sense to them.
Now here is the thing though, I think is very true is because we speak a different language
on a very fundamental level, like they've learned English and they're much better at
English than, well, most Americans, they just don't understand idioms.
And so when we cross those divides and when I have to think about what I'm saying in order
to communicate to them my heart, it requires a different set of emotive, intellectual and
spiritual qualities.
And in a lot of ways, once I feel like we understand each other in many ways, as opposed
to somebody who would just speak English normally, I feel like we understand each other better.
We're more unified because we have to overcome the obstacle.
And I wonder when I read this story, when God confuses their language and then forces
them to actually overcome that obstacle to understand each other, is it not overcoming
something between you like having to listen and respond and really like decipher?
Doesn't that not lead to more unified people?
Because it makes you pause and consider what am I actually saying?
And let's just, let's dispel a couple things in this story.
We do not know how God confused their language.
Right.
Okay.
We do not know how he scattered them.
Like verse eight, it talks about how he scattered them all over the world and they stopped building
a city.
I think it's probably like a salt shaker.
Yeah.
We don't know like, we don't know how that happened.
Okay.
So again, this is a story, it's not about how did these things take place?
Right.
It's not a scientific account or any of that.
It's a story of saying, okay, what question we need to ask is what is the Lord doing in
the writing of this story?
Also thing to dispel, where does it say that God's mad at them?
It doesn't.
Like God doesn't reprimand them.
He doesn't chastise them.
He just looks at them and he's like, hey, this is not going to be good for you.
So let's do something that's going to help you be better.
Yeah.
Now, why that works exactly, I don't a hundred percent know.
I told you it's a difficult story, but I know that there's something in the scattering and
the differing string of languages that allows us to actually have better communication and
grow into the kind of people God wants.
Yeah, absolutely.
The kind of people who actually work in this world because you're like, oh, well, you know,
maybe we should be able to be whatever we want.
The problem is the world was created by God.
It's held together by his standard, not ours.
And when you step outside of that standard, suddenly you have death, disease, infection,
all these different things that aren't meant for the world.
But you're actually stepping outside of God's design.
Yeah.
And a good father is going to look at that and say, no, I don't want that for you.
I'm also not going to stop you from doing it because I need you to be an individual.
There cannot be obedience with that choice.
No, there cannot be obedience without choice.
And how many good parents let their kids take appropriate risk?
You mean how many good parents do?
Yeah, I phrased that, how many good parents.
How many good parents let their kids take appropriate risk?
I've met some parents, I know one person in particular, they coddle their kid.
That's me.
That's not me.
It's not me.
But they coddle their kid like none other.
And their kid, if there's a remote hint of their kid getting the scratch, they're like,
no, no, no, we're not doing that type thing.
We live in Alaska, there's bears, there's all sorts of things.
So there's no snakes, there's no snakes.
I love that.
There's no snakes, there's no alligators.
But there's just a little more inherent risk with just sending your kid outside.
Even just sending my daughter outside just to play in the yard, there's a little more
inherent risk.
Right.
Because you just don't know if a bear is going to walk through the yard.
And so you have to be a little more mindful of that stuff.
But at the same time, you have to find ways to let kids have risk, make their own decisions
and live and learn a little bit.
And you see God doing that with his people.
I think it's insane to me to think that everything you were going to do is going to be perfect
on the first try.
Oh, yeah.
My oldest son learned to walk sometime between one and two.
And I always think it's interesting that we focus on this moment when everybody wants
to take pictures of the first step, right?
And they say, well, everything comes from the first step.
That's actually not true.
We had to do tummy time, right?
We had to learn how to crawl.
We had to learn how to sit up.
Also, I don't know about you with your daughter, but I took him and I would hold his hands
up and I would let him walk along before he could actually hold himself up.
And then when he took his first step, you know what happened?
He fell.
Yeah.
Almost immediately.
Right on his face, right?
Because that's what learning looks like.
Now, I think it's crazy to me that we expect people who go into ministry, people who serve
God, we expect them to be perfect on the first time.
And that's just not realistic with everything else that we've learned.
You're learning how to follow God as a child.
Well, I mean, yeah.
The people going into ministry front, like when you take someone out of one town and
put them in another town of full-time ministry, they have to learn an entire new culture.
Yeah.
Right.
You have to metaphorically learn how to walk again.
Yeah.
It's not just like, oh, well, you've done ministry for 20 years.
It's like, no, like you take someone from inner city Seattle and you move them to middle
of nowhere Kansas.
I guarantee you that church is going to be different than the church they were at.
Do you think there's somewhere called nowhere Kansas?
I don't know.
They're like, they named our city.
It'll be hilarious.
I'm not going to fact check that right now, but it'd be hilarious.
Yeah.
But I mean, like, so when you, when you do stuff like that, which churches do all the
time, when you do stuff like that and expect them, just the pastors to have it right on
the first time, no, it's not going to work.
Yeah.
So what I'm saying here that we learn about God is God's okay with them messing up.
Yeah.
He's also going to correct it.
Yeah.
There is no punishment here.
He doesn't say that the scattering them and changing the language isn't a punishment.
No, you know, actually let's, let's say that one more time, right?
Not just for the podcast, but because you need to hear it.
Scattering them and confusing their language isn't a punishment.
God's very clear in the Bible when there's punishment.
Yes, he is.
And and you know, I'm even going to correct the word because I think we, we have a negative
association with the word and we misunderstand it.
It's not punishment.
It's discipline.
We don't punish our children.
Okay.
Hear me guys.
If you are punishing your children, then you're saying what they are is wrong.
When we discipline our children, we say the behavior is wrong.
You hear me?
Because I'm not interested in punishing my child for being a child.
I am interested in pruning them to be a healthy adult.
Punishment says you are bad.
Punishment says you did bad.
Yeah.
And I'm interested in raising a functional child that can actually function in society
and also follow God.
Yeah.
And I believe that if I think that as a okay father, then God as a good, good father is
going to do the same thing with me.
And so occasionally he's going to come and be like, Hey, what you're doing, it's not
great.
Let's just prune that.
And let's move you a little bit.
Can we talk about God's grace in this story?
Yes, please.
Okay, so growing up, I never heard this.
And then a few years ago, I heard this and I was like, this makes so much sense.
Okay.
When they were united, they were of the same speech.
They were only thinking of themselves.
And God says, Hey, that's not good.
I'm going to have grace on you by confusing your language and scattering you across the
world.
Right?
This is a moment where God's like, Hey, I'm going to have grace because this is going
to be better for you in the long run.
Right?
And we often skip over that in this passage where we're like, okay, well, God's just angry.
He's frustrated.
I was like, no, he's not.
He's like, I'm trying to save and redeem my kids.
There's no indication that God's upset at all.
None.
No indication.
He's being very grace-filled in this moment because having a different language is going
to force me to understand you.
Yeah.
And I can't be selfish and understand you.
And when you're talking to somebody who speaks a different language than you, everybody instinctually
goes to this grace-filled spot where they're like, okay, I have to try to understand even
though I don't know the words they're saying.
I have adopted siblings from different parts of the world.
And when they first came to our house, we didn't know what they were saying at all.
We had to have a lot of grace as they tried to explain things to us.
And they had to have a lot of grace with us as we tried to explain things to them.
Right?
When there's this language barrier, we instinctually have grace with each other.
It's very interesting.
And so God's putting this in place so that his kids can be more grace-filled.
It's just...
Now don't type away and be like, okay, let's talk about blah, blah, blah.
This is a little bit of a thought experiment, but go with me on it.
Yeah.
I think the tendency is to overreact and to be like, okay, so every negative thing that
happens or I perceive negative thing that happens in my life is an opportunity for me
to be more grace-filled.
So on a broad level, yeah.
Yeah.
On another level, it's like sometimes things happen because you're a jerk.
Yeah.
Right?
Completely.
So let's not try to blame God for things that are definitely our fault.
Right?
There are natural consequences to what we do.
Back when we were talking about Adam and Eve, there are natural consequences to our choices.
Right?
We have to decide, are we going to define good and evil on our terms or are we going
to trust God's terms?
Yeah.
God tells me that it's not good for us to be united in selfishness.
And you know what?
I've been in America long enough to agree with him.
Yeah.
I said that about our country because a lot of us are united in our selfish pursuit.
How many believers do you know?
Seven.
I want an exact number on this, Ben.
An exact number.
How many believers do you know who are like, man, I follow Jesus, but then when you get
to know them, you're like, no, you follow a political ideology.
Right.
I'm not going to actually get into that, but-
I wasn't asking you to get into it.
I was just going to give me a number.
Seven.
Okay.
Cool.
Ten.
Seventeen.
Thousand.
Seventeen thousand.
Okay.
That knows a lot of people.
I know a lot of people.
I know a lot of people and very few of them.
Yeah.
I know, it's so difficult because it's this thing of if all the Protestants in America,
right, the people who claim to be filled with the grace of God actually lived in such a
way that they laid down their life for everybody around them, what kind of America would we
have?
Yeah.
Right.
And I'm going to go across all denominations because I think it's really tempting for us
to point at this group or this group.
Everybody's got their issues.
So the best thing that we can do is look at ourselves and say, am I actually living into
the gospel narrative where I am seeking to understand, to lay myself down, or am I feeding
into the narrative where I'm going to build a tower for myself?
Yeah.
Who's going to make my name great?
Is it going to be me or is it going to be God?
I had a conversation with a friend the other day and they were asking questions just about
denominations, stuff like that.
And they're like, okay, well, how do we know, one of the questions they asked, how do we
know this specific denominations actually Christian denomination?
And I was like, well, do they believe in Jesus?
Yeah, they believe in Jesus.
Okay.
So they've confessed with their mouth that they believe in Jesus.
Yes.
Okay.
So they believe in their hearts.
Yes, they believe in their hearts.
Okay, there you go.
Now you need to figure out how to work with them.
Correct.
Yeah.
And people are really uncomfortable with that broad of a level.
I think it's a perfectly valid concern when the people don't fall back to the godly authority
of the word of God.
Yeah.
I do think it's concerning when you have your interpretation of the word of God as your
biblical authority.
Yes.
We'll get into that in like in future episodes, but let's just hold that out there.
Yeah.
You, we, it's coming.
Teaser.
It's coming.
It's going to come out here.
And the temptation is to let our conviction be our command.
And that is not the way of Jesus, first of all.
In fact, he frequently corrects that with the Pharisees.
Instead it's an invitation to relationship and to live into that relationship.
Yeah.
And I think that, you know, on the flip side of that, I think there's a perfectly valid
conversations you can have where you talk to somebody and be like, man, I just don't
understand how you're living into relationship with what you're doing.
Yeah.
And those are real conversations that you can have.
The problem is frequently we don't want to have those conversations.
We want to come and say, Spencer, I think what you're doing is wrong.
Yeah.
And you need to do what I'm doing.
Mm hmm.
Well, now you're building a tower to your name.
Yeah.
As opposed to Spencer, I don't understand how your relationship is actually reflecting
Jesus.
Can we talk about that?
Right.
So Tower of Babel, I mean, like it's a confusing story on some level, but on a lot of levels,
it makes a ton of sense.
Yeah.
Technology is not the problem.
The problem is what you do with technology.
The problem is the people behind technology.
And now that's not a job at big tech companies.
We're all behind technology.
You have a smartphone, you're behind technology.
Yeah.
Also, you're literally listening to this on Apple or Spotify.
So that's those are the options right now.
Yeah.
There might be more in the future, but that's the option right now.
But the issue is, is how we use that technology.
Correct.
Right.
And there's been people who have exploited it for personal gain.
And then there's been people who have said, no, I'm going to use this for good.
Correct.
And the other side of that is about finding unity.
Yeah.
Are you unified behind a selfish motive or to subdue the earth, fill it and bring about
the garden?
Which thing is actually going to motivate you to make a name for yourself or to make
let God make your name great?
Yeah.
Right.
There's, I mean, these stories guys, like they have really profound implications.
And I honestly think like these first 11 chapters, we need to think about a lot more.
Because these are foundational to how we're going to interpret the rest of scripture.
Yeah.
So good.
Yeah.
So good.
All right.
I think that's going to be it for us today.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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