This week we’re exploring the story of the Tower of Babel, as part of our EPIC series on finding Jesus in the Old Testament.

Maybe you watched a video that made the rounds a few months ago, showing a guy with a really sad life posting all kinds of optimistic posts.  You can see it at

Everywhere on social media, and elsewhere, people are making a name for themselves, putting time and effort into cultivating a “personal brand.”

It takes an incredible amount of effort.  Social media is meant to be social, to bring people together, but often it pulls us apart.

It seems like this should be an era of unprecedented unity, connectedness for humanity.  In addition to social media and the Internet in general, we have air travel, translation tools, institutions like the UN and EU.  The list goes on.

Does all that unity lead to peace, harmony?  No.

It’s not just a structural problem, needing better technology to fix.  There’s something deeper inside each and every one of us that seems to stand in the way of peaceful relations with others.

Even if we could all work together – and could agree on what to work on – would that be a good thing?

For example, the global economy brings many benefits, but also means problems in US are felt in China – problems in Russia felt in Australia, etc.

The tribal hatreds in one part of the world are only a plane ride away from another.  The pollution of one nation can completely counter the green efforts of a neighbour next door.

What is the source of all this?  Why, even with all the technology, communications, institutions and more that we have today, can we not get it together?

We’ll see some clues in today’s story.  It describes a kind of global cooperation among humans that we’ve never seen since…and the dangers of human-focused solutions.

First, a question:

Question: Why do you think people in the world have such trouble cooperating?  And when they do, how can it still go wrong?

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