Tower of Babel and the power of speaking in tongues

One of the interesting things with the Lord and the Bible is that He had it written and since He had the plan from the beginning, He has all these interesting things in it that are connected. He can and does point them out to you at times, which amazes you.

One such things He pointed out to me and which amazed me was the connection between the tower of Babel story in the OT and His Spirit coming with tongue in the NT. Briefly put, now all things are possible for us, because the Spirit came with tongues!!

Ok here is what happened. At the time of Babel, men came together because they all spoke same language and tried to build a physical tower to heaven. Of course that was really silly because even if they could have built a physical tower all the way to the moon, we know they would not have gotten to heaven.

Yet God comes down and says that if they men come together like this then all things would be possible for them. Thereby implying that they could get to heaven??? So God causes them to speak in different languages so they can't unite.

Gen 11:6-8 The Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad....

So, they didn't have the same language and that caused men to scatter abroad. This makes sense, because not having the same language makes it hard to unite. However in Act you read about how devote men from every nation are suddenly hearing everyone else in their own language! They were speaking in tongues and each was hearing the interpretation in their own language, via the Holy Spirit! Well that pretty much solves the language problem, right? And with that we can now again come together with the Holy Spirits leading, and that again will make it so that it can be said "now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them." The catch being that we have to be lead by the Holy Spirit to speak in the same language!!

There is of course one other catch. We have to want to be lead by the Holy Spirit to all speak in tongues and get the interpretation!!!

We don't really want that, do we. Isn't that why Paul commanded us to desire the gifts, because we don't want to. We still want to be lead by us and not Him. Maybe if we just start thinking about that tower to heaven and that nothing is impossible with God part, we might decide to seek Him and the gifts like we read in the Bible??

yeshuaslavejeff said:

Did you notice - in ACTS, they did not speak the same language - possibly 70 different languages , from all the nations, each heard their own language.

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It doesn't say they spoke in different languages!!! It does say they each heard in their own language!

There is a place where tongues is mentioned as a language of angels. And it is written in Acts "as the Spirit lead them" - so they were speaking as the Spirit lead them, not there own familiar language according to their own up bringing in a particular language. So it is doubtful that they were speaking in 70 different languages! That is a common jump in logic that we make when reading the Scriptures but it's not actually written in the Scriptures.

Of course this brings up the issue of actually getting the gift and using it, because to find out how something really works you need to use it. That being done a number of things are discovered. What you find out is that sometimes what your speaking sounds like one language or another, but very often it doesn't seem to be anything resembling an earthly language at all. If fact sometimes, to my surprise, I found myself just saying something like "Tss, Tss, Tss, Tss……" That didn't seem correct, but then one day I was at a group prayer where a number of others were speaking in tongues quietly and they were doing the exact same thing. So in actually getting the gift and using we find that it is not like what we think it is going to be like!!!!

That shouldn't be surprising when we consider that it is written that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth are His ways above our ways!! Still it is surprising and this is not often covered in most churches. We are supposed to edify/ educate people in these matters, but too often we just lean on our own understanding instead of seek the Lord and what He has for us. Indeed, it is written that tongues edifies (teaches). So if we don't have the gift and are using it, are we not missing out on a teaching the Lord has for us?

yeshuaslavejeff said:

Did you notice - in ACTS, they did not speak the same language - possibly 70 different languages , from all the nations, each heard their own language.

Click to expand...

It doesn't say they spoke in different languages!!! It does say they each heard in their own language!

There is a place where tongues is mentioned as a language of angels. And it is written in Acts "as the Spirit lead them" - so they were speaking as the Spirit lead them, not there own familiar language according to their own up bringing in a particular language. So it is doubtful that they were speaking in 70 different languages! That is a common jump in logic that we make when reading the Scriptures but it's not actually written in the Scriptures.

Of course this brings up the issue of actually getting the gift and using it, because to find out how something really works you need to use it. That being done a number of things are discovered. What you find out is that sometimes what your speaking sounds like one language or another, but very often it doesn't seem to be anything resembling an earthly language at all. If fact sometimes, to my surprise, I found myself just saying something like "Tss, Tss, Tss, Tss……" That didn't seem correct, but then one day I was at a group prayer where a number of others were speaking in tongues quietly and they were doing the exact same thing. So in actually getting the gift and using we find that it is not like what we think it is going to be like!!!!

That shouldn't be surprising when we consider that it is written that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth are His ways above our ways!! Still it is surprising and this is not often covered in most churches. We are supposed to edify/ educate people in these matters, but too often we just lean on our own understanding instead of seek the Lord and what He has for us. Indeed, it is written that tongues edifies (teaches). So if we don't have the gift and are using it, are we not missing out on a teaching the Lord has for us?

yeshuaslavejeff said:

Look again -
it was not an interpretation they heard. They all heard the message in their own language. No mention of any interpreter nor interpretation.

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If I spoke in Spanish how could everyone there hear it in their own language unless they had an interpreter??? They couldn't

So either the "they all heard in their own language" was incorrect or the Spirit was interpreting what was being said to them.

Oscarr said:

This is connected with what God said when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. (my paraphrase "They have become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Let us block their access to the tree of life lest they should become immortal and make the problem unsolvable." In other words, gaining the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve, in a sense became their own gods instead of depending on God to determine what was good or evil for them.

The people built the Tower of Babel to exalt themselves. It was not to get to the literal heaven, but to express themselves as their own gods, who did not have to depend on the Living God.

It seems that when people get too big for their boots, something happens to cut them down to size. It links to the Scripture "Pride comes before a fall".

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I do think you are right in that people wanted to get to heaven to get what they want and not what God wanted for them. Thus to be god instead of serve God. We people do tend to be that way. We should understand that about ourselves!

Still, I do think they intended to get to a 'literal heaven' in some sense or another - or why else take all your time and effort building in the first place? For example, trying to build the biggest building in the world is possible and act of pride but is not the same as trying to build it to get to heaven! That latter shows intent to acquiring the things of heaven, the former just the intent to have the biggest. Both are from pride but still it was for different reasons.

Which brings us to God response. He didn't just break down the tower, nor did He actually forget the desire of men either. It took a while and the coming of the Christ, but ultimately God gave us the desire for having the things of God, but only by being lead by the Spirit! There is something written about God wanting to give us the desires of our heart. So the Father made arraignments to give us the desire of having the things of heaven, but that by pouring out His Spirit on us.

nt

yeshuaslavejeff said:

There have been report(s) that it has happened again.

Most recent was in Mexico some years ago. The speaker who did not know the language, gave the message, and afterwards they asked him when he had learned their language - they all heard him perfectly in their language!


(for the same purpose as in ACTS; as Yahuweh Himself accomplished this or did this for His Own Plan.)

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I love stories like this. God is still doing things, and we love it. Never-the-less, there seems to be notable differences. In Acts, we see that there were people from all the nations, not just Mexico. So God could not just give a speaker the ability to speak in say Spanish so that the Spanish speaking audience would understand it. Everyone had to be hearing the message in their own language which meant the Spirit had to be interpreting. Which begs the question of the speaker in Mexico actually spoke Spanish or did the Spirit give the audience an interpretation. It doesn't make a lot of difference. God accomplished what He wanted.

Also, in Acts, not every body heard in their own language, but only the devote people. There were many others who thought the devote believer's were drunk!!! And certainly some of the devote believer's spoke the same earthly language as those thinking they were drunk! So most likely the Spirit was having everyone speak in a heavenly language and was making it possible for the devote believers to hear that in their own language. That is the only thing that would fully explain why many were thinking that they were drunk. It could also be what happened in Mexico.

God certainly could have had the speaker in Mexico just speak in tongues and had all the people hear it in Spanish. And that would point back to the thread title, where all things are now possible with God, because us devote believers are all speaking the heavenly language and hearing it in our own language. We can not come together under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. We have our tower to heaven. All things are now possible for us, through God.