Few things are more important to our growth as Christians than learning how to walk in unity. At the same time, few things are more confused than some of our discussions about it, for some of us have some pretty misguided notions as to what unity is and how to maintain it. We think it means having some commonality of interest or holding similar opinions on hot topics—notions that really have nothing to do with it.
As I’ve been thinking about it, there are a couple of stories from the Bible that teach a valuable lesson about unity—stories you wouldn’t think are associated or connected, but that convey a very important truth about the topic.
The first one is one of those stories from the Old Testament that is, frankly, a bit baffling and confusing—the account of the Tower of Babel that’s recorded in Genesis 11.
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 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. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (v. 1-9, NIV)
What does a story where God steps in and confuses the language of people and shuts down a construction project, interfering with the solidarity people had, have to do with unity? If anything, this is a story about disunity. But when we look at the background behind the story, there are some details that help us make sense of it.
For one thing, it says the whole world had one language and a common speech. This is early on in the development of the human race to where everyone spoke the same language—a situation that undoubtedly helped promote and foster unity. Humanity was united in a way that is foreign to us—no linguistic divides.
Second—this construction project was religious in nature. The people were pooling their efforts and applying their ingenuity toward something that would have a transcendent impact in their lives. This was an attempt by people to pool their ingenuity and establish their superiority at the expense of needing or wanting God. You see that in v. 4—their motivation for doing what they were doing was that they might make a name for themselves and not be scattered over the face of the earth. It was as if their efforts sent God the message, “Don’t mess with us. We’ve got this. We don’t need you!” The Tower of Babel was an effort to bring humanity together apart from God. They wanted a name, they wanted security, and they thought building the city with this monumental tower would give them both of these things.
Was there anything wrong with building a tower … with working together to accomplish a dream … with trying to do something that had never been done before, or acting upon a sense of initiative and ambition to accomplish something exceptional? No! What was wrong was their motivation. Arrogance, pride, and hubris were driving their actions. They didn’t want to live life dependent or under the perceived thumb of someone else. They didn’t want to be in any way subordinate, or controlled, or regulated. They wanted to call the shots and be in charge. And they wanted to create something that could serve as a visual and constant reminder that they didn’t need God.
But God, seeing the rebellion in their resolve and the unity with which they were pursuing this project, decided to step in and do something. 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.” (v. 6). If they are this unified in their self-reliance and self-sufficiency, nothing they propose will be beyond them and they’ll bring great destruction and chaos to the earth. It’s as if God understood the innate and intrinsic power of unity, so he responded by confusing their system of communication to where conversation became difficult. He introduced language into the mix and unity became hard to realize. And everything ground to a halt.
Which brings us to a story from the New Testament—Acts 2:1-12.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” (NIV)
A little background into the story will help us understand what’s going on. The Day of Pentecost is referencing a Jewish celebration that occurred some fifty days after Passover. Also known as the Day of the First Fruits, it celebrated the beginning of the wheat harvest. And because it happened at a time of year when the weather and traveling conditions were at their best, it was typically the best attended of all the Jewish feasts. People of faith from all over the known world would make their way to Jerusalem to participate in the festivities. There was never a more diverse gathering in the city than this one. The array of languages you’d hear as you made your way through the city was staggering. Luke says as much in v. 5—God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven were gathered in the city.
While this was going on, Jesus’ little band of followers were gathered together—praying, waiting expectantly, and doing what He’d instructed them to do a week or so earlier before He left and ascended into heaven. And while they were engaged in this process, suddenly they heard the sound of a powerful wind and observed what appeared to be tongues of fire coming to rest upon each of them. None of them knew what it was or what to make of what was going on, but they all experienced it. And the Holy Spirit gifted them with an ability to move out into the streets, and share, in the native tongues of those gathered for the festival the message of Jesus. The people, it says, were amazed—stunned—at the fact they were hearing these people communicate with them in their own native languages. Bewildered and puzzled by what they were witnessing, they asked, “What does this mean?” They tried to make sense of this baffling and unusual, but miraculous, phenomenon.
We know this as the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit burst onto the scene … when the Church of Jesus Christ was born. If you read on, you know the apostle Peter stepped up and addressed the crowd off-the-cuff, explaining to them what they’d just witnessed—anchoring his remarks in both the Hebrew Scriptures as well as recent events related to Jesus. And it says about 3000 people placed their faith in Him that day. Suddenly this Jesus thing is much more than an undersized band of followers clustered in a modest room. It’s a movement … something dynamic and compelling is going on!
In this story, a lot of focus is on the linguistic phenomenon that accompanied the arrival of the Spirit. We wonder whether what we see here in Acts 2 is the same thing Paul is referencing in 1 Corinthians 12 & 14 when he talks about the gift of tongues. But this, I believe, obscures the primary point of this passage—namely that when the Holy Spirit bursts onto the scene and infiltrates a person’s life, there’s a divine enabling that happens breaks down barriers and promotes unity. When the Spirit of God resides in the hearts of two people, there’s a connection that emerges that goes beyond the many distinctions and differences that might exist between them.
In many ways, what happened at Pentecost is the anti-Babel. What happened in Acts 2 is the polar opposite of what happened in Genesis 11. What God did at Babel he undid at Pentecost. At Babel, there was a unified people and God stepped in to create discord and disunity—so much so that the project they were involved in shut down. At Pentecost, people were linguistically divided and God stepped in and did something that made communication and unity possible. At Babel, God interjected Himself in a way to where language became a barrier. At Pentecost, God manifest His presence in a way that the language barrier was defeated and overcome. At Babel, the people experienced something that made unity difficult and problematic going forward. At Pentecost, they experienced something that made their unity much more likely going forward. At Babel, God did something to sabotage their solidarity. At Pentecost, God did something to empower their solidarity. The Holy Spirit’s presence did something in the lives of those Christ-followers that made unity possible.
And the same holds true in our day. One of the time-honored traits of the Holy Spirit is that He does something within the lives of those in whom He resides in that makes unity possible—that helps them move past the many obstacles and barriers that can separate them. He provides us with an impulse that makes those things that come between us weaken and diminish in importance. Granted, it may not look like it looked in Acts 2. He may not gift us with an ability to speak a language we’ve never learned in ways that make the linguistic barrier irrelevant. But part of the work of the Holy Spirit is forge a sense of unity between people who, on the surface, have many things about them that are different and dissimilar.
My guess—if you’ve ever been on a short-term mission trip, you’ve experienced this. You are interacting with people whose lives are very different than yours. You’ve never met them before and, likely, will never see them again. There are numerous barriers—linguistic, ethnic, social, economic, political—but you feel a sense of warmth and camaraderie toward them because the same Jesus that dwells in you also dwells in them. Even though conversation is awkward and communication is labored, there’s a chemistry and connection. There’s a sense this is my brother or sister and we’re a part of the same family even though there are a lot of things about our lives that are very, very different. We’re linked. We’re related. We belong to the same tribe at a level that is deeper and more significant than anything on the surface.
This is part of what the Holy Spirit brings to our lives and does in our hearts. When we yield ourselves to Him, He forges in us a fondness for people who are not like us. Which means that when something—philosophical, political, racial, whatever—comes between two people who claim to be followers of Jesus and a breakdown happens, you can bet one of them is not allowing the Holy Spirit to have free reign and unhindered sway in their lives. For part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to forge unity. And the church—this movement birthed on the day of Pentecost by the power of the Holy Spirit—is to operate on that basis. We’re to be a people of every tribe and tongue … every ethnic and language group … every social and economic designation … every political and philosophical persuasion … who come together and are cohesive, connected, and unified because we believe God has done something within us that is greater and more significant than the many things that can divide and come between us.
At Babel, God did something to create dissension and disunity. At Pentecost, He did something to facilitate connection and unity. And in our day, God wants us—His church—to be people who demonstrate and live out the implications of Pentecost rather than people who manifest the disconnection and division of Babel. He wants us to be one church made up of diverse folks who are joined together, linked, and united because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.