For All Generations To Come

Genesis 10

Trish Haq

February, 4 2024

With a friend, your family or in your small group, discuss the following questions:

1. Have a look at Genesis Chapter 10. What stands out to you about this genealogy? Why do you think it’s been titled “The Table of Nations”
2. The Table of Nations names a total of 70 descendants of Noah’s sons. This is a number that represents completeness. What importance do you think this has? What is it communicating about the picture of humanity presented in chapter 10?
3. What challenges and problems do you see reflected in the Table of Nations? What questions does it raise?
4. Chapter 11 seeks to answer the questions raised by the genealogy in chapter 10 by offering a flashback to explain how and why humanity became scattered and divided. Read Genesis 11:1-9 and share your initial thoughts. What do you notice? What new questions does this passage raise?
5. The Tower Builders made use of burnt brick technology to make the tower. New technologies are potentially neutral, but can have positive or negative effects in the world, depending on how they are used. Are there examples that you can think of where technology is being used for good, for the furthering of God’s kingdom? In what ways do you see technology being used in negative or damaging ways?
6. Scholars today believe that the tower of Babel may have been a common structure found in the Ancient Near east, called a ziggurat. This was a pagan structure, designed to try to get the gods to come down from heaven to have their needs met by the people. The hope was that this would result in the gods reciprocating by giving the people their favour and blessing. In what ways does it deepen our understanding of Genesis 11:1-9, that the structure was designed to bring God down to our human level, not to get humanity up to God’s level?
7. Idolatry is at the heart of the problem in this story. Idolatry involves placing your trust and hope in something or someone other than God. Sometimes we do this willfully. But, we can also fall into idolatry unintentionally, when we fail to understand who God is, and worship a god of our making. This can result in attempting to center our lives around a misrepresentation of God. In what ways do you think the tower builders, as well as the oppressive nations mentioned in the Table of Nations, engaged in idolatry? In what ways does idolatry get practiced still today? In our world? In your own life?
8. The tower builders were working on a human project, rather than God’s project. They were focused on building their own oppressive Kingdom, instead of participating in the building of God’s kingdom. In what ways do you think you are at risk of a similar mistake? What projects are you working on these days?

Pray for each other out of the points discussed. Pray that God would give wisdom and insight for you to recognize areas in your own lives where you might be working on the wrong project. Ask God to reveal any idols in your life that need to be set aside. Pray for one another, that God would reveal ways that he is calling you to participate in His kingdom bringing work for the sake of the world.