Research, done by Hamptons International for Guardian Money found that to afford the average first-time buyer property in Great Britain, borrowers who had put together a 15% deposit would need a household income of £37,096 to get a mortgage. Assuming households of two people working full-time, it said 70% would be able to achieve that figure. However, they would need to raise a deposit of £29,458.
In Wales, the average first-time buyer place costs £143,110, and about 90% of households earn the £27,032 a year needed to afford a mortgage. But they need to raise a deposit of £21,467.
The reason this is of interest is ...
Everyone wants the security of bricks and mortar
And THAT looks like being the issue with the Tower of Babel, for which incidentally there's good archaeological evidence here.
It was millennia ago on the Plain of Shinar (later Babylon) that humanity decided they'd put their security in sticking together rather than trusting their insecurities to God.
In a way the drift to security schemes and away from trusting God was perfectly natural. They lived insecurely at a time and in a place with no Government, no legal system, army or policing. There was nothing to LOOK at that made them feel safe in a relationship of trust with an unseen God.
They therefore concluded that their best course was to stick together rather than trust God when he'd told them to spread out.
There's no doubt they were going against God with this:
"God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."
Genesis 9:1
In fairness, they'd got the message at first because after listing a lot of names Genesis 10:32 tells us:
"These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations, and from these the nations spread over the earth after the flood."
But now there was an insecurity-induced change of heart taking place, and refusal to trust God: faithlessness took refuge in bricks and mortar.
The security of bricks and mortar
Those descendants of Noah settling (instead of spreading) on the Plains of Shinar decided it was time to take their security upon themselves.
They saw safety as being in numbers, and perceived a need to have a rallying point ... a point to attract people to huddle together.
“Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens
so that we may make a name for ourselves.
Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.”
Genesis 11:4
God's plan was to continue to be the One Who since He created continued to protect and provide for His Creation, and that humans (as is stewards in Creation) should steward according to His agenda.
Things had started to happen that would frustrate God's good plan, and that would be a very slippery slope.
God's analysis of what they were doing was pretty revealing.
The Hebrew of Genesis 11:6 says that if they carry on rebelling against God's plan for them like this:
“all that THEY purpose to do will not be withheld from them.”
There's the thing.
This was an act of insecurity-inspired, Eden-esque human rebellion: what THEY purposed to do.
It's not about the bricks or the tower
It wasn't so much about the bricks but the purpose of God for them that they were rejecting
A big clash of worldviews ensued and to remove a false sense and source of security, which would hold His people back from safely trusting in Him and carrying out His plans and purposes, God stepped in to resolve the situation:
"Come, let’s go down and confuse[s] their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building the city."
Genesis 11:7-8
God restored the spreading to fill the earth that He'd planned for His people after the Flood (see Genesis 9:1) because that was His good plan for the care of Creation.
Humanity was to steward His Creation, and to do that they needed to get OUT there!
The Point
This incident in Genesis is just NOT about the pain of having to take French lessons!
It's not about whether we need bricks and mortar either. Evidently there are times when we do.
It's all about trusting God to take care of the consequences of His people obeying His Word.
It's about what we do with our insecurities, and where we will in practice place our trust.
The Takeaway
We need to beware of what schemes our human insecurity leads us to cook up, because humanity's security lies in faithfully nestling into the Providence and protection of our Creator, and that means working within the guidelines He gives.
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