NOTORIETY

As I've been preaching lately on the major stories and themes coming out of the early chapters of Genesis - the concepts which get universalized and carried throughout the rest of Scripture - I have arrived at Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel incident.

There's a lot going on here. My major challenge all along with this series is knowing how to narrow my focus.

First, there's the "Table of Nations" stuff in chapter 10 and - if I wanted to run down a rabbit hole - there's the passage in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 laying out the fascinating possibility that Yahweh disinherits the nations after Babel and hands them off to lesser spiritual beings, turning His focus to creating a new nation which will be His people.

Something I hadn't noticed before: The people are motivated to build the tower so as to "make a name for ourselves". This and the function of the tower itself - an attempt to connect with heaven in such a way as to bring God down to earth - moves God to action and He scrambles the languages.

I think there's a lot to chew on about the power of language and communication, but what struck me was the "making a name" part. They want to make a name for themselves specifically in hopes that will prevent them from being scattered - which would involve following God's will!  

But then in Chapter 12, God zeroes in on Abraham - who is descended from Noah's son, Shem, whose name means "name" - and promises Abraham to "bless him" and "to make his name great". God doesn't have an issue with somebody becoming well known - as long as He is in the driver's seat and the notoriety is for the right reason.

And God goes on to say WHY He plans to make Abraham's name great: "so that you will be a blessing"! (Genesis 12:2)

God plans to give notoriety to Abraham - greater notoriety than the builders of the tower could have dreamed of - but not for the sake of Abraham's ego, but rather to bless the world!