The Tower of Babel

^{Genesis 11:1}Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ⁵And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. ⁶And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. ⁷Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

There is no limit to what people can do when they share one language and have a common goal. God confounded their language, not because they were building a tower, but because they were doing it without him. They had factored God out of their lives.

If we, the church, are to become one new man as God intended, we must first invite him back into our lives, and to a some extend, perhaps a large extent, we have done that. But inviting back him into our lives does not resolve the language issue, that thing still divides us. Unity requires a common language. By that, I do not mean a common tongue, but a common understanding of the words that are the building blocks of our languages.

As believers, it stands to reason that what we believe must be at the core of being a believer. Believers are defined by what they believe. After all, we all believe something, but that does not make us all believers in a Biblical sense. It is reasonable to assume that there must be core beliefs that are essential, beliefs that establish us as Biblical believers.

Following this reasoning, each group of believers establishes a set of essential beliefs that define them. This is often called a statement of faith. The statement of faith defines what they, as a group, believe. These beliefs must be defended at all costs, and that which unites us as a group divides us into groups.

In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.

This quote sounds like a call to unity, but it is a call to division. It is talking about beliefs. It requires unity in essentials: when it comes to essentials, it says we must be unified, we must all believe the same things. For those who disagree with us, we must disagree gracefully. Just say this with your best Southern drawl, “Well bless your heart.”

The problem with this logic is that believe does not mean what we “believe” it means. Can you appreciate how the definitions of words can completely change the landscape when it comes to interpreting the scriptures. That underscores the scope of the problem we are facing. Without definitions we can trust, we are left with chaos, it feels like we are lost in space.

If this sounds disruptive, it is because it is. For the purposes of this book, you will be learning a new language. This new language will use the same English words, but those words will be assigned different meanings.

Please pause to consider the enormity of what I am saying. You are about to embark on a journey that will challenge you to the core. I understand that it is difficult to fathom how this could even be possible.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

I am asking you to entertain a thought without accepting it. By proceeding on this journey, you are not making a commitment to accept the thought.

^{Luke 5:36}And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.

A new reality is is likened to a new garment: it is comprised of many thoughts, many pieces. Normally, we are accustomed to accepting thoughts as we receive them, assimilating them into our current reality in real time. Jesus warned us against this practice, immediately accepting thoughts from a new reality into an old reality. In the end you would have no garment, and you will be left with nothing to wear.

^{Luke 5:37}And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.

You consider a thought without accepting it by creating a new space for the new reality, sequestered from your current reality, an entertainment space for your consideration.

The two realities cannot be mixed. The old bottle is your current reality, the new wine is comprised of the concepts pertinent to the new reality. Mixing them will result in the lose of both the wine bottles and the wine. If you mix some of the meanings in the new language with the definitions used in the current language, nothing will make sense.

^{Luke 5:38}But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.

To proceed, you must use a new wine bottle. The new wine bottle is a new reality, separate from your current reality. The point is that the new wine cannot be mixed with the old wine. You must pour it into a new wine bottle and let it age there. It is not ready for your consumption.

During this process, continue to drink the old wine. The new reality is not your reality, it is more like an imagined reality, a reality based on a different language.

^{Luke 5:39}No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

The new wine will not taste good at first; don’t even try it. Just pour it into the new wineskin. As you watch it being poured, follow the logic; it is very methodical. As you read this book, allow the wine to age. Don’t rush the process, carefully consider each step. By the time you finish this book, you will be in a position to determine which reality you prefer. You are even free to create a new reality, taking into account things you have learned, if anything. This reality can be your very own.

Pause once again to assemble your thoughts. Although this is a novel approach, this is not a novel, and it cannot be read like one. I suggest you are not ready to proceed until you are emotionally ready. If you are emotionally invested in your current reality, you are not ready to continue. I am not saying you need to abandon your current belief system, I am asking you to put it aside for the moment. This book is full of triggers that will cause the “educated mind” to stumble.

If something in this book causes you emotional distress, it is time to pause: this is only entertainment. You watch movies all the time that cause you emotional distress, and you continue to watch, considering it entertainment. If you are not shocked by the things in this book, if you have not been shocked already, I would be shocked.

You may continue when you think you are ready. Just remember to pause as needed.

Let us consider what is at the root cause of the confusion of our language. Let us examine the process by which our language was constructed.

Lexicographers constructed definitions by studying how words are used in text. They relied on theologians for their understanding of Biblical text. Theologians then took the definitions constructed by the lexicographers to study the meaning of the text. Do you recognize this as circular reasoning? The process is based on the presumption that we understood the meaning of the text before we knew the meaning of the words. But the problem is deeper than that.

When definitions are constructed in this way, the result is that words have multiple meanings, each definition involving the word’s intrinsic meaning but masked by a contextual component. Given the complete set of contextual definitions, one cannot deduce the intrinsic meaning of the word. Even if the process began with the correct interpretation of the text, the language would still be confused.

Our language should be based on the intrinsic meaning of terms, not contextual definitions.

A Biblical Approach to Biblical Text

^{Genesis 2:19}Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

God brought the animals to Adam, one by one, and he assigned names to them. Each name he assigned represented the animal he named. The name, the word, inherited its meaning from the animal it represented. Biblical terms work this way. Our current system of circular reasoning is appropriate for a language that is continuously evolving, but it is not suitable for Biblical text whose meaning must be stable.

The confounding of the language is profound, but how are we to go about fixing this problem? If we are to assign terms to the things they represent, we must first be able to see the things they represent. You cannot assign terms to things you have never seen. Since Biblical terms represent things only found in the kingdom of heaven, we must become familiar with the kingdom of heaven.

^{Matthew 6:33}But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

The first step is to seek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.

The process of untangling the language may seem insurmountable, but it is not as difficult as it may seem. It would seem that the fix must be replicated for each tongue, words redefined in every language. But consider this: a user manual often contains text in more than one language, but the illustrations for each of the languages are identical. If fixing our language involves discovering the intrinsic meaning of terms, and the intrinsic meanings are illustrations, pictured by the things they represent, they can easily be adapted to any language, just like in a user manual.

In the new language, words are pictured, not contextually defined.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, and each word is pictured, the language can be visualized, and we can see what the scriptures are saying. The visuals can easily be mapped into any language, and our language can be untangled, confounded no longer.