A Journey and a Settlement

A Journey and a Settlement
Genesis 10: 21- 11: 2

A decade ago, we moved from Britain to the United States, and an Indonesian joined us to share in caring for my wife, Ann, with her disability. When she and her husband went home, a Kenyan took her place. When she and her husband went home, a Filipina joined us. When she and her husband went home, a Chinese woman came to us. Who knows who we might have next? When I sit in a faculty meeting, I do so in the company of people of Hispanic, Asian, African, and European background. When I go into the classroom, I see Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, and Asian faces. At graduation each year, the seminary president reads out a list of scores of countries from which graduates originally came and to which they are now returning. How does God relate to the existence of all these different nations? What is the place of Libya and Turkey, Sudan and Greece, Britain and the United States, Indonesia and Kenya, Australia and China, in God’s purpose? The account of Noah’s descendants suggests some insights, though the account of the Babble tower will suggest different ones and remind us how the development of different nations complicates communication. (Perhaps that will also explain the reference to the world being “divided.”)...