It was back in the 50s, but I can still hear the wooden floors creak in my old Sunday school room, and I can hear the strains of the choir singing down the hall. The classroom corkboard was covered with crayon-colored Josephs and King Davids. It was St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in the rural village of Sykesville… a scene from a bygone era.
Our Sunday school lesson sounded like something from a bygone era, too. It was an obscure passage in Genesis 6:4-5: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them.,, The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
Our Sunday school teacher explained that when the daughters of men married the “sons of God” – the Nephilim – they produced offspring who were un-human. Different. Strange. Offspring who were not quite of the human race. My Sunday school teacher went on to explain that this may have been one of the main reasons God wiped humans off the face of the earth with the Great Flood; it was the only way to ensure that this strange breed of half-humans would be eradicated.
I completely forgot about that Sunday school lesson until a year ago when I traveled to a Mid-west college campus to attend a conference called “What Does It Mean to be Human?” The lecturers presented shocking material. Researchers are now manipulating atoms in a whole new area of science called nanotechnology. Soon, these designer-atoms will seamlessly weave their way into the brains and muscles of people. They will be a breed apart from most humans, advanced in intellect and excelling in health, strength, and longevity of life. In the not-too-distant future we will live alongside what the lecturers called, trans-humans.
At that conference, I had to wonder when the patience of God will come to an end. Not many of us think – or really care – about how nanotechnology will affect our world. It still seems like science fiction. But then you read Matthew 24 where it says, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
Wait a minute. How will it be at the coming of the Son of Man? The time when we finally cross the line of God's patience? It will be as in the days of Noah. As in the days of those strange, abnormal people, the Nephilim. It’s just a wild guess. But who knows? With nanotechnology and a strange new breed of people called trans-humans walking the earth…who knows, the coming of the Son of Man may not be that far away.
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