by Abram Kim
On October 7, 2012, Sonlight concluded the lesson on the 4th C of history, Confusion. The first three C’s are Creation, Corruption (the Fall), and Catastrophe (the Flood). The last three C’s are Christ, Cross and Consummation. On the timeline posted in the Sonlight room, we see that the 4th C of Confusion encompasses the period from the Tower of Babel to the incarnation of Christ.
Dennis Su did a fantastic job explaining that the 4th C is about how God confused the languages as Noah’s descendants disobeyed God and congregated at the land of Shinar instead of filling the whole earth (Genesis 11). It is a story well-known to those brought up in the church. But this historic account has more significance than just that we have hundreds of languages around the world and that our skin colors and cultures are a little different.
The question I had to my small group kids at the blue table (3rd to 5th grade boys) was, “Why did God want to fill the whole earth with His people?” God gave the same command to multiply and fill the earth to Adam and Eve. God’s intent from creation was to have a world filled with His created people. God thought it necessary to give this command again after the global flood wiped out all but 8 people on the earth. Noah and his family lived in a world so saturated with sin that Scripture describes God as “grieved” at the sinfulness of man (Genesis 6:6, ESV). Perhaps in this culture it was easy to forget God’s commands only a few generations ago to the original man and woman and so God thought it necessary to reissue the command.
The why can be explained in simply by the ultimate purpose of life, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But this does not explain thoroughly exactly why the entire face of the earth needed to be involved. We can only conjecture as to why God thought it desirous to fill the earth. I have shared on occasion with those who would listen that I considered God as wise and creative and beautiful in preparing for Himself a varied collection of peoples and cultures and time periods to worship the one true God for all eternity. Whatever God’s reasoning, He wanted the entire world to be filled with those that will worship Him and enjoy Him forever. Noah’s descendants were not obedient to this call and God forced the issue by confusing the language of the people.
So now that we understood the facts of the biblical account, I wanted the blue table to think about implications and application for today. The world today is indeed filled with people. We celebrated Columbus Day on October 8, 2012 to signify that an influx of Europeans invaded the Americas a few hundred years ago. There are so many diverse languages and cultures and people groups around the world. But the question is are they worshiping God? God doesn’t desire the world to be filled with sinful men again. Though He won’t wipe out the world with another global flood (the rainbow is the symbol of God’s promise), He will come to judge sin soon.
We find in Acts 1:8 the New Testament version of God’s command from Genesis. No longer are Noah’s descendants or Israel responsible to spread the glory of God to the ends of the earth. That responsibility now falls squarely on the Church of Jesus Christ. Herein lies the Vision of LBC’s MVP. That was the conclusion of the blue table’s small group discussion, and then we continued on in Sonlight with snacks and games.
The need for God-fearing and God-loving churches still exist today because the need to fill the ends of the earth with God-fearing and God-loving people still exist today. The vision of LBC is to be obedient to God’s command to fill the earth, and we as a Sonlight staff pray that the vision will be passed on to the next generation of God’s people to continue the work, until the Lord’s return.