Does God Really Want Elders To Stay? - 13
Then why did He separate us and send us out?
You may wonder why I am bringing this ancient history into a chapter called: On Staying in Your Community? What do the sons of Noah, and his sons’ descendants, and the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of languages, and the migration of peoples, have to do with becoming a good elder for God’s church?
You may also wonder how I expect to prove the importance of staying in your community to become an elder, if my examples of godly men are Noah and Abram who both separated themselves from the community they had grown up in.
Furthermore, you might question whether staying in your community is doing the exact opposite of what God intended when he commanded Adam and Noah to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.1 After all, filling the earth implies moving away to remoter parts of it.
And, finally, when the LORD toppled the tower project, by confusing the languages and dispersing the people, wasn’t this His reaffirmation of His desire for us to separate rather than stay together?
I will work to bring these things together quickly.
Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 9:1.