When God created the world within those six days of Creation Week, He created a world that worked. It was a working world. This world wasn’t some dysfunctional, balky prototype. The relationships between all the different components in His Creation worked flawlessly. God even says so during the Creation Week. Repeatedly, after each of the Creation Days, God looked over what He had made and pronounced that it was good (Genesis 1). When God says something is good, it’s not like when we say something is good. Too often, we say things are “good” when we really mean “good enough” or sometimes “not really good at all, but I really don’t feel like talking about all the things not going well, so I will just say good.” This is not like how God treats the word “good”. For Him, when He pronounces that something is good, He means it. Like when He says that He is good. That doesn’t mean that He is good enough to pass, mostly good, or even the best-at-it-but-no-one’s-perfect. God is 100% good. When He says, using His powerful words, that something is good that means that it too is flawless and without failure.
Language was part of Creation. In the beginning, language was good. We’ve looked at the ways in which we fail in our uses of language, where we use our words in powerful but sinful ways. This wasn’t always the case. Originally, language was only used in ways that were good and glorifying to God. The negative side of language began at the Fall. In fact, you might even say that the Bible records the first sinfully used words. One could debate about where exactly the first sin entered but regardless it occurred within the exchange between Eve and the serpent. Very possibly, the first words that the Bible records Eve saying were the very first sinfully used words in the Bible:
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die (Genesis 3:2-3).
She uttered a half-truth to the serpent in her outlining of God’s rules, making God appear harsh and unreasonable. God never said that they weren’t allowed to touch the fruit. Indeed, they’d even been instructed to care for the Garden of Eden, to “dress it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). This very likely would’ve involved the touching and working with all the different trees of the Garden. God’s command regarding the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 2:17 is quite clear in its requirement, “Thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Yet, even with this clear and concise language on the part of God, Eve twists, adapts, and rephrases it in her discussion with the serpent. Quite possibly, this was the first moment that Eve falls into sin. If this truly was a slip of the tongue on the part of Eve and unintentional, which could be debated, her conversation with Adam shortly thereafter, wherein she convinces him to eat and he refuses to rebuke her, truly would be the first sinful interaction. Regardless of the exact moment, the point still remains: language was used to draw and convince others to sin.
Shortly after the eating of the fruit, God reveals unto us how quickly language degenerated and the sinful power it held. Language had been used constructively up to that point. In chapter 2 of Genesis we read of God bringing the animals before Adam so he could name them. Adam issued names to all the creatures of God’s creation. This was a constructive, positive, good use of language. Same, too, when God created Eve and Adam named her as well, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23). And yet, fourteen short verses later Adam turned on his wife, the flesh of his flesh, and tried to shift the blame for the Fall onto her while at the same time accusing God (remember James 3:10, “Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing”). Adam quickly picked up the sinful habit of self-righteousness and denial of guilt, usually manifested in our words. He said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12). Eve followed the same sinful route as her husband, denying fault for her actions by trying to slide guilt away from herself by blaming the serpent. How quickly the good, flawless, and constructive language God created degenerated into the backbiting, cursing, and deconstructive language of sin!
So we see the effects of sin on the use of language. The original design of language has been tainted by corruption. So too has the order and perfect design for the linguistic qualities of language. When one studies a language, it is very easy to see patterns and order amidst the chaos. There are linguistic rules and regulations regarding each language’s syntax, semantics, pragmatics, etc. However, these rules always seem to have exceptions. No rule is a perfect rule in a language, same as there is no perfect language. The order and structure of languages, much like the order and structure in the rest of Creation has been warped with sin. When sinful man interacts with language, regardless of the language, how new or old the language, the result is a distortion or a warped re-imagining of the perfection that once existed in language prior to the Fall. This can make learning languages extremely difficult as we battle with the inconsistencies, the rule-exceptions, the “it-just-plain-doesn’t-make-sense” encounters within the structure of languages. We will see how this, while incredibly frustrating, has a way of working for our advantage.
God’s providence is defined in the Belgic Confession, Article 13. This article describes the truth of providence as such:
God, after he had created all things, did not forsake them, or give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without his appointment.
Article 12 also references providence when referencing God’s continued work in Creation when it says that providence is the Creator’s divine ability to “uphold and govern them [the elements of Creation]...[by] his infinite power, for the service of mankind, to the end that man may serve his God.” God’s providence is His power whereby He continues to control all that happens to the end that we may serve, honor, and glorify our Maker more perfectly. Through His providence, He designs the workings in the world around us to suit His plan. He never has to build His plan around the happenings of mankind because they’ve already been pre-ordained by Him to fit and work to the fulfillment of His will.
The iconic Romans 8:28 passage belongs with this conversation as it serves as a proof of God’s providence: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” This is God’s providence at work. He upholds and governs – He providentially controls – all the happenings of the Creation for our good and for His glory.
Now, how does this tie into language education? The connection lies at the Tower of Babel. This is one passage in the Bible where the construct of language is very clearly discussed. It is here at Babel that the language of the people was “confounded.” The Tower of Babel account takes place only a few short generations after the Flood (in fact, Nimrod the leader at Babel was a grandson of Ham). We read of the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. The chapter begins, “And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” The Bible makes sure that this point is firmly established because it is going to dictate what happens at Babel.
Nimrod and the builders at Babel decided to rebel against the mandate of God to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (found in Genesis 1:28). Instead of doing this, the builders of Babel decided to “build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). They didn’t want to subdue the earth and replenish it. They wanted to band together in resistance to God and to forge a name for themselves.
God saw this happening – and we ought to keep in mind nothing is a surprise to God as this was in His divine plan – and remarks to Himself, “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (vs. 6). God remembered His promise to Noah that the world would never again be destroyed in such a manner as the Flood before the end of time. The cup of iniquity couldn’t fill too quickly and yet, similar to the pre-Flood world, wickedness was growing at a rapid pace: “nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”
So God, in His providence, decided to “go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (vs. 7). In doing this, God erected a barrier to slow down the development of sin. No longer could wicked man easily communicate and plot wickedness. Different languages caused schism within the throng at Babel that divided them and spread the people out across the world. The Bible remarks of this when it tells us the results of God’s confounding the languages:
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth (vs 9).
The LORD did this to preserve His church and to hinder the development of sin so that all in His will would be accomplished prior to the filling of the cup of iniquity. Also, it should be mentioned that the Bible says the LORD did this. The all-caps LORD refers to God’s covenant name Jehovah. Jehovah confounded their speech and scattered them abroad. Our covenant God did this for the sake of His covenant.
So, when we study languages, regardless of the particular language, perhaps we can have different perspective when it comes to the difficulty of it. One of the leading comments regarding language learning is how difficult it is. There are so many rules, nuances, pronunciation-guidelines, dialects, sociolinguistic concerns, and then there are all the ways that these principles and rules are broken. It can be truly mind-boggling. Instead of looking at this as a burden, look at it as a blessing. There is a blessing in the difficulty. God providentially divided language in order for it to be difficult. It was meant to be a barrier, a stiff, resistant barrier. The diversity of languages that we face today is a blessing. Babel is an example of what happened when everyone could communicate universally. The Flood is an example of what can happen when everyone and anyone can verbally interact without hindrance. Let that be a warning the next time we bemoan the diversity of language. That diversity is a blessing, not a curse. God instituted language as good in the beginning, yet mankind has polluted, twisted, and manipulated it to work for evil ends. How gracious our God is to preserve His covenant people through His confounding of language!
Now think, and this is the last thought in regards to God’s providence, how powerful our God is. Providence is His upholding and governing of the universe. He “upholds” means that He is constantly and continually controlling all aspects of Creation. All aspects means He knows and understands every detail of every language that ever has been and that ever will be. He knows them perfectly in all their nuances, every little change that happens to them, every new word and adjusted phrase, every connotative meaning, and every rule-breaking exception. He knows and understands it all. Wow! Now we marvel. We struggle to learn even the rudimentary basics of a new language. Yet He knows them all! That truly is a marvelous, amazing truth. How great is our God!
ANSWER THE GOOGLE CLASSROOM QUESTION BY RESPONDING TO 4 OF THE 5 THOUGHT QUESTIONS BELOW --- USE WELL-THOUGHT PARAGRAPHS BASED ON THE READING OF CHAPTER 4. PLEASE INCLUDE THE QUESTION #'S IN YOUR RESPONSE.