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This devotional address entitled,

Discernment for journeying through Babylon to Athens and Zion,

was given on July 5th of 2005 by Arnold H. Green,

then a BYU professor of history.

I'd like to talk to you today about traveling.

My wife and I once boarded a train going from Paris south to Marseille, a Mediterranean port.

At Lyon, about halfway there, part of the train, the part we were in actually, split off and headed east toward Geneva.

As soon as we saw the Alps, we realized that we were off course.

We got off in Grenoble, caught a train back to Lyon and then took a later train to Marseilles.

The minimal ability that we possessed to discern between the Alps and the Mediterranean

helped us to make a necessary course correction on a physical journey.

Discernment is a vitally important quality.

We need it for each of the three tracks of our journey through life.

These tracks can be symbolized by places.

Babylon for material life, Athens for intellectual life, and Zion for spiritual life.

Scriptural imagery distinguishes Babylon from Sodom, an emblem of gross perversions.

Babylon represents our entire material experience, meeting our physical needs,

getting and spending, relishing the vain things of the world, and satisfying the natural man.

According to what we might call a double commandment, we are instructed both to be not of the world

and to be in the world.

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