Learning A New Language

Learning a New Language

Women In The City Of Babel

Read: Genesis 11:1-9

When Eric, my oldest child, decided to learn a foreign language in high school, I encouraged him to try French and promised to help him with his homework. Since I had loved French classes in my high school and college days, I looked forward to working on the language again. It was fun at first, but soon my confidence eroded when the words and grammar rules were no longer familiar. I hadn’t realized how much of the language I had lost by not practicing it.

The women in today’s Bible passage learned a new language instantaneously and lost their native one at the same time. Instead of obeying God’s command to spread out and fill the earth, the people had stayed together. And then in their pride, they decided to build a tower that would reach to heaven. Because the human race was rebelling against God, he gave them different languages to force them into separate groups. It’s hard to imagine the confusion and panic that erupted. Suddenly, a woman’s friends couldn’t understand what she was saying, and they seemed to her to be speaking gibberish. What had happened to the world?

Once we become God’s children, we have a new language to learn, but unlike at the tower of Babel, this does not happen instantaneously. The Bible is our textbook. Two of the Ten Commandments forbid taking God’s name in vain and lying about other people. Many passages instruct us to guard against using our mouths for gossip, slander, useless arguing, obscenity, or too many words. God also gives us a clear picture of what our words should be like. We are to express praise and thanksgiving to God and encourage and build up other people. Although our culture admires obscene humor and clever put-downs, God calls us to a higher manner of speech. But we have to do our homework and practice using our new language.

Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.

Colossians 4:6