Nimrod and Babel

Two completely divergent thoughts for today:

Nimrod, mentioned in 10:8-9 as a mighty hunter, seems to have fallen a peg or two in modern thinking. If people consider the word "Nimrod" at all, two things might come to mind:

1. A 1997 album by Green Day that includes quite possibly the most annoying song of the past 15-20 years, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)."

2. An incompetent person. Indeed, one of the definitions at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nimrod is "It came to mean "geek, klutz" by 1983 in teenager slang, for unknown reasons," and if you follow the link, you'll read an amusing little story as to how that might have come to be.

In addition to being an acknowledged great hunter, he was also credited with establishing (by my count) eight cities, including Nineveh and Babylon, two of the greatest cities of the Old Testament. This is an incompetent person? This is a klutz? I think not.

My second thought refers to Babel and a devotion I've used on more than one occasion. Consider 11:6, which states "The Lord said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.'" I think it's easy to confuse the forest with the trees in this case, since God is clearly disappointed with the the GOAL of the activity (making a name for themselves) and not their cooperation and working together. As such, consider this simple proposal:

If, as one church (and be my guest to define "church" however you wish, from locally to globally) speaking the same language, we decide to glorify God in the greatest way possible, is it possible that nothing we plan to do will be impossible for us?

Scott