Possible Inference Versus Necessary Inference<\/a>. God does expect you to use the mind that He gave you.<\/p>\nGod said, “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it<\/em>” (Genesis 9:7). Instead, the people decided, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth<\/em>” (Genesis 11:4). God wanted them to scatter across the earth, but the people decided they didn’t want to scatter.<\/p>\n“Defy” means to openly\u00a0resist or refuse to\u00a0obey. This is exactly what the people did. It doesn’t require finding the exact word in the text; the word aptly describes the situation.<\/p>\n
When God confused the languages, the result was that the people were forced to do as God had originally commanded. “So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth<\/em>” (Genesis 11:8-9).<\/p>\n\tResponse:<\/h2>\n
Thank you so much for your response. I truly appreciate it.<\/p>\n
God bless you.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Good day, I’m slightly confused about Scripture and interpretation here. The story of Babel is always propped up as a story of man’s defiance of God’s will, but nowhere do I see the Bible actually state that they defied God. Yes, they did go against God’s command. God wanted people to disperse around the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[266,189,529,1610],"class_list":["post-67321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-babel","tag-genesis","tag-hermeneutics","tag-inferences"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":66529,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wasnt-babel-the-city-of-eridu\/","url_meta":{"origin":67321,"position":0},"title":"Wasn’t Babel the city of Eridu","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi there. I used to be a member of the Church and a devout Christian. I recently found something on your website that deeply disappointed me. I am specifically referring to the following answer you gave to \"Where is the Tower of Babel?\" In that answer, you state that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36620,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-do-those-who-claim-to-prophesy-or-speak-in-tongues-scare-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":67321,"position":1},"title":"Why do those who claim to prophesy or speak in tongues scare me?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In my church when people receive the Holy Spirit they scream and jump and do all sorts of weird stuff. One time, when I was at Sunday school, the teacher said: \"You have to ask the Lord to baptize you with the Holy Spirit, 'cause if you don't want\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1174,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-is-the-tower-of-babel\/","url_meta":{"origin":67321,"position":2},"title":"Where is the Tower of Babel?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where is the Tower of Babel Answer: The city of Babel is first mentioned in\u00a0Genesis 10:8-10, \"Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, \"Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8745,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-miracles-happen-every-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":67321,"position":3},"title":"Do miracles happen every day?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Recently, in a discussion, someone said that miracles happen every day; and that if you anoint someone and pray over them, then they can be healed. Also, they say that proof of miracles today is the fruits of the Spirit. They \"defy the nature of man,\" so they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42142,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-repeating-a-false-doctrine-blasphemy\/","url_meta":{"origin":67321,"position":4},"title":"Is repeating a false doctrine blasphemy?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Minister, When I was in college I took a Jewish mysticism course and the professor explained a theory about God to the class. The theory was basically that God had a very small portion of evil in Him and He despised that evil so He created humans and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95218,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/learning-the-story-of-god-and-his-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":67321,"position":5},"title":"Learning the Story of God and His People","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 22, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hugh DeLong As a preacher, I have converted many people, most of whom knew very little about the actual bible story. Then it took time to ground them in this story of God and His work. This was particularly true of our preaching efforts in China. How were they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}