Communication is the bedrock of human civilization and must be prioritized. This begins with a couple preparing for marriage, whose union should rest on, rather than mere romantic ecstasy. Marriage should be regarded as the most important institution, because it is from its establishment that discordant societies emanate. When the Bible states that in marriage the two shall become one, it affirms the oneness of humanity—a oneness made possible by effective communication.
Misunderstanding is a symptom of poor communication. To understand why communication can either build or destroy a nation, we must first define it. Confusion is another mark of Satan’s work, and it is sustained by poor communication. The starting point is to seek to understand before being understood. Satan’s method, by contrast, promotes being understood before understanding the other person. Nothing else breeds confusion in human relationships. Yet we must also ask why God opposed the unity of the Babylonians.
The city of Babylon was the first example of a nation reduced to rubble because of poor communication, since God opposed the unity its people sought. God confused their language—their primary tool of communication. This diversified their speech patterns, brought misunderstanding, and caused disintegration. We must connect with God’s wavelength to understand why He brought disunity to the first civilization on this planet.
“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.’”
— Genesis 11:1–4 (NIV).
This was a brilliant idea from the Babylonian community. The social contract of humanity is facilitated by good communication. Language, as the perfect tool of communication, enables effective interaction among humans. Yet something was not right. Just as any good-looking structure can be dangerous if it lacks a solid foundation. Their objective had potential for success but carried long-term, devastating consequences because it was founded on a poor foundation.
“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”— Genesis 11:5–9 (NIV).
The Scripture above delineates God’s method of thwarting the Babylonian plan. They had the right concept of solidifying their relationship, but it was premised on a wrong foundation. We will not dwell on the merits or demerits of God’s decision to thwart their project, but we can spot a potential poison in the motive advanced by the Babylonians: “so that we may make a name for ourselves.” We will focus on the facility God used to hinder the Babylonian project.
Language is the number one facility by which a nation can be sustained in the physical world. A nation can be solidified by communicating in the same language with survival-oriented objectives. Proper use of language is necessary for adequate communication among those involved. Failure to communicate according to agreed principles can still cause problems even when people use the same language.
Distorted communication can be driven by propaganda, used by some nations to advance non-survival agendas. This confirms that good communication starts with understanding another person before seeking to be understood. Propaganda is advanced by people whose agenda is not to understand the other party but to destroy it. Any nation poised for destruction has falsehoods at the root of its perilous condition, where falsehood is adopted as truth.
Poor communication emanates from falsehoods, commonly advanced by blatant criminals. Words can mean different things, so a criminal can manipulate intended positive communication to convey a negative meaning. This reveals the existence of communication used for destruction. The purpose of criminality is not construction but destruction. Backward nations are backward because of systematic falsehoods permeating their social systems.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”— John 1:1–5 (NIV).
From the above Scripture, an idea of communication can be deduced, aimed at unveiling an indestructible civilization. We saw that a nation can be destroyed or upheld by violating a social contract established in good communication, where the common agenda would be survival. There are those who foolishly pursue falsehoods while assuming they aim at survival. Consider corruption, which leads to the destruction of an entire nation.
It may surprise many that those engaged in corruption may not even be aware of the impact of their actions. As far as they are concerned, they are pursuing survival and assuming they are communicating effectively. Otherwise, their corrupt activities would not succeed. People carry out conduct that appears innocent but has the opposite impact. “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12 NIV).
Education is vital when it helps individuals discover their identity, which describes their role in contributing to human survival. This is achieved through proper communication. Poor communication can also be assumed to lead to life when it actually leads to death. The Word to which the Apostle John refers signifies communication whose source is God, the Father of humanity. All communication must flow directly from the source.
Although figuratively, John says the Word became flesh (John 1:14), he was referring to a principle that denotes communication as coming from the source. Proper use of words leads to life, while improper use leads to destruction. Jesus was the only character whose communication leads to life, replacing the corruptible human communication. A person can obtain temporary benefits by distorting what Jesus taught, but the end thereof is destruction.
Without Jesus’ communication, the entire world fumbles in poor communication, leading to destruction. Jesus declared that He was the bread of life, figuratively implying that no other information grants assurance of life except that which emanates from Jesus. This can be taken to mean that every word spoken by Jesus ought to be taken verbatim. Jesus is the only one whose communication, when taken verbatim, leads to life.
Destructive communication carries words that appear right to any person but lead to death. In this world, we have nations engaged in propaganda. One nation manufactures lies against another, while the other engages in counter-propaganda. In modern civilizations, one would expect nations to be truthful to each other. But nations are often observed seeking to advance their agenda, assumed to be better than the other. There is an aspect of ego that appears to sustain each of those nations.
Propaganda is therefore used by nations to outfox each other. A mixture of falsehood and truth is used to manufacture lies. Truth can be clearly communicated without alteration. But a person with the wrong motive can twist information to mean something else. The alteration of information may appear innocent, but it poisons the structure of communication. Compare Eve’s alteration of information in the Garden of Eden:
“But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
— Genesis 2:17 (NIV)
Eve then altered the information as follows:
“But God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
— Genesis 3:3 (NIV)
A careful observer notices that the two statements are different. What the woman said misrepresents the actual words of God. Nothing appears amiss except for what led to the adoption of the devil’s deception. The woman appears not to have duplicated God’s words, thereby doubting their truthfulness. The formula of communication is that there must be duplication of what is said by another person before understanding.
The wrong thing that confuses people is to assume understanding before duplicating what comes from the source. Many people declare that they have understood what they would not have duplicated. They apply the principle of assumption, which causes the greatest number of relational problems among humans.
Most people take things for granted without spotting miscommunication as problematic. If falsehoods were completely eradicated, even domestic quarrelling would be eliminated. War would be reduced to history books. It would be impossible for any person to be suspicious of another. Each person would be respected for what he truly stands for.
The aspect of self-defence as a way of pursuing survival is often adopted as necessary. However, self-defence is what motivates harming another person rather than defending another person. When adopting truth from the originator of truthful communication, what is required is defending another person before defending oneself.
As simple as this appears to be, self-defence contains the crux of all problems of humanity. Many reading this may also not take it as seriously as conferring survival information. Blessed are those able to see what the rest of humanity has been unable to see throughout the centuries.
The misunderstanding comes from the assumption of understanding before duplication. The mischief of Satan is not contained in the totality of evilness. It is contained in the mixture of good and evil, so that evil appears as good—or goodness appears as evil. On that condition hang all the problems that are glaringly ignored by unsuspecting humanity.
Duplication may require asking questions to be sure of understanding what is being communicated. Understanding does not always require agreement with what is being communicated. A human being is granted the power of choice, which anyone can exercise over matters received from fellow humans through communication.
For instance, what is communicated may be duplicated as requiring the killing of another person. If in disagreement with that communication, a normal person would not carry out the instruction, even though having understood it. The senior data from God requires abstaining from carrying out evil instructions from the devil. All communication should be understood as flowing directly from the Godly source.
Jesus’ teachings should be understood as the only data with ultimate truth. Information received ought to be evaluated according to God’s Word. Sadly, we have young people carrying out murderous activities on behalf of their seniors. Under a corrupt governing system, some youths may be used to carry out evil conduct. They may be protected from above for doing such evil practices.
The responsibility for committing evil may remain with the entire nation if it is committed on behalf of those in government. The murderous youths would be harming the entire nation, including themselves, but such youths would be unaware of their evil conduct. This refers to youths who would fail to distinguish between God and those in authority. In other words, they view those in authority as if they were gods.
They assume they are innocently carrying out instructions from above. But that is miscommunication from above. Proper communication requires duplication and understanding of lawful instructions, as opposed to unlawful instructions. Good laws provide survival to the greatest number of humanity. The constitution of a country ought to provide guidelines when carrying out instructions from superiors.
Zimbabwe is currently in a despicable condition because juniors carry out instructions from above without reviewing the aspect of illegality. The common saying that no one is above the law is not often applied. Many junior employees become complicit in illegalities, so that they carry out gruesome acts on behalf of their seniors.
They assume they are innocent because they are only carrying out instructions from above. However, that does not stand as long as one is aware of one’s identity. One may be a junior, but that does not mean one’s superior is above God. Failure to exercise one’s duties according to the rule of law makes one complicit in evil conduct.
We are where we are, as a nation in degradation, where the Head of State is assumed to have been the only culprit. However, it is wrong to absolve those juniors who carried out illegal instructions on behalf of the Head of State. The sad manifestation is that most of those in public service call themselves “Christians.”
They ought to understand better that the Head of State cannot be god. What could have been their reason for carrying out illegal instructions? The answer lies in not knowing that all communication flows from John 1:1–5, leading to its articulation by Jesus in John 1:14. Therefore, all communication ought to be evaluated according to Jesus’ instructions.
Christian believers are the light of the world. Some of them might be complying with illegal instructions out of fear of losing their jobs. They would have failed to pass their Christian test. One’s job cannot be more important than Christ. That person would have, unfortunately, failed to distinguish between Christ and the Head of State.
Without communication, a nation is like a vehicle being driven without lubrication. The engine would be poised for a knockout and reduced to a wreck if it functioned without lubrication. Throughout the centuries, some nations disappeared, either through war or poor communication. The existence of a nation is sustained by good communication.
Without communication, there would be no hope for survival. But a lack of communication includes falsified information doing the rounds. False information is harmful, while truthful information contains survival attributes. Whatever causes many people to flee from their country to the Diaspora in search of greener pastures portrays poor communication.
The indication of whether a country is good or evil is depicted in its level of communication. Poor communication includes the adoption of falsehoods. The blame cannot be limited to the communicators. Listeners have a share, as they also carry the responsibility of evaluating information, whether it is in line with Jesus’ teachings or not.
The story of human civilization began with a Babylonian civilization whose structure was destroyed by God because its foundation excluded divinity. Only after Jesus was crucified did the miracle occur: people of diverse languages could understand the disciples at Pentecost. This reveals a principle of communication granted by the Holy Spirit that seeks to understand before being understood.
Truthfulness, as emanating from Jesus, can be said to be what builds; falsehood, emanating from Satan, aims at destruction. Communication, being the centre of human civilization, is therefore the cause of either its harmonious construction or its destruction. The same applies to any social structure where humans interrelate, as communication is the real fabric of humanity.
Andrew Masuku is the author of Dimensions of a New Civilisation, which lays out standards for lifting Zimbabwe out of its current economic depression and into a model for other nations worldwide. A decaying tree provides an opportunity for a blossoming sprout. Written from a Christian perspective, the book is a product of inspiration, offering relief to those who have witnessed the strings of unworkable solutions leading to the current economic and social decay. Most Zimbabweans should find the book to be a long-awaited providential oasis of hope, in a simple conversational tone.
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