When Wisdom Ceased
To Be Wisdom:

A CHRISTIAN CONCERN ON GENOME PROJECT

The wisest man ever lived, King Solomon, said in Proverbs 2:6, “The Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.” Obviously he was speaking from experience because God gave him wisdom through vision in a dream. Job ascertained that, “there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” (Job 32:8) Wisdom cannot be bought with gold. Its value cannot be compared with precious jewels.

We are told in the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The author of a Christian literature, ‘Go to the Ant,’ defined the fear of God “as the scale that weighs our actions and evaluates our thoughts. It is the control that bridles our tongues from evil utterances. It is the divine molding mechanism that shapes our lives in righteousness each day, according to the will and expectations of God. It is also a self-examination question that we ask ourselves before every decision: “Will God be happy with what I am doing?” We tend to ask, “If fear of God is all about application of control upon our life, what is the relevance of it as the beginning of wisdom?”

It is the intention of God that wisdom be used by man to improve upon and effectively manage the planet earth. Bible says, “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28) Control and wisdom must go hand in hand. In order for wisdom to be used for any purpose, there must be a measure of control. Wisdom is designed by merciful God to benefit humanity. At the expense of humanity, this same wisdom can be perverted when those who have it are motivated by greed and selfishness. In essence, wisdom is a tool. It is used for evil or good depending on the hands that wield her. Adam and Eve started well in the Garden of Eden. They dwelled in the divine wisdom of the Almighty until they set aside the fear of God for selfishness and used their wisdom in according to the directive of Satan. Conversely, Noah dwelt in the righteousness of God, feared Him and obeyed His commandments. He was open to the divine wisdom and understanding and was able to build the Ark, a boat of salvation. Noah and his household were delivered from the destructive flood. They formed the core of the generation that continues to the present time. The great men of God in the Bible have something in common – the fear of God. It is the fear of God in them that led them to live righteous lives. The righteousness based on the fear of God made them apply their wisdom on positive purposes.

This scenario leads us to the second definition of wisdom because there are situations where wisdom ceases to be wisdom. Wisdom that is not based upon the fear of God is foolishness. Wisdom that is exercised to hurt the feelings of other is cruelty. A diabolical wisdom that makes you gain at the expenses of others is cheating. Wisdom that makes man destroy what he did not create is a manifestation of evil order.

Wisdom on other hand is like a child that is properly brought up in a good family and in a good environment, adequately trained to be good example in the society but when he grows up, disregards the righteous ways of his parent, follows the ways of the worldly and end up his career in life in confinement as a result of nefarious activities he later deviated to in life. So also is the wisdom that started off in godliness but later deviated or diverted to wickedness.

The wisdom that built the boat of salvation in the generation of Noah has now been modified and transformed for selfish reasons to build the warships that carry so many jet bombers and many navy crews and at the same time provide take off and landing space for the air craft. The same wisdom of Noah was transformed to submarines that can launch missile equipped with both conventional warhead and nuclear warhead to destroy humanity. Albert Einstein, one of the geniuses of the nineteenth century, meant well when he came up with the theory of relativity. What have we done with this equation since then? Instead of perfecting it for positive purposes, the world used this wisdom to manufacture nuclear bombs. The nations of the world have produced enough nuclear bombs that can destroy the entire inhabitants of the earth seventeen times over. Apart from an electrical energy source, there is nothing about nuclear energy that is useful to humanity. The bombs are destructive, so also are their carcinogenic radioactive waste products. The maintenance of the plant is unreasonably exorbitant. It is like diverting fifty percent of the revenue of a nation to maintain a plant that is in most cases useful for destructive purposes. Sadly, one of the yardsticks of measuring the advancement of a country in our own time is nuclear capability.

In our world today, people use words such as ‘smart,’ ‘clever,’ ‘nifty,’ etc., to express the effectiveness and abundance of wisdom they possess. As much as these words seem to express their wisdom, it also reveals some element of negative connotation and hurtful executions. Whenever wisdom rides on the roller coaster of smart ideas and clever executions the end result is not always positive. Politicians can be ruthlessly clever, or crookedly smart. The wicked people in the society may adore his wisdom. However, those who are truly wise according to the intention of God will have great reservations about him because he lacks the fear of God. What seems to be a nifty idea to some might have destructive consequences for others.

In an attempt to resolve information problems, wisdom took mankind from telegram to facsimile and telephone. In the computer age, wisdom continues to solve information problem in the advent of the Internet. The negative application of the computer wisdom led man to design computer-guided air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles. As sophisticated as the technology of information super-highway is, who ever thought some evil-incarnated hackers can take the whole world to a stand still by breaking into the information that they were not authorized to access, or manufacture deadly computer viruses that can destroy all the information that righteous people have been building over a considerable period of time in order to exhibit their negative wisdom? You will notice an inclination of evil application of wisdom in this analysis. In our own time, the larger portion of the wisdom that man possesses is being structured or channeled towards evil. It goes along with the word of God that described the heart as “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

On June 26, 2000 Human Genome Project leaders announced the completion of a working draft reference DNA sequence of the human genome. The Project began in 1990 and it is said that more than $3 billion has been spent worldwide on it.

The Genome Project is one of the greatest breakthroughs of our time. In this rare feat, the renowned genetic engineers of the world succeeded in mapping out all the genes of man. It is certain that there can be no breakthrough in the life of mankind unless God leads the way. It is a special grace that God gave unto man to achieve this feat in order to use the wisdom to solve various kinds of human health problems. It is in our time that man experience kidney failure, heart failure or heart attack and so many have passed away because of the out break of many diseases that the medical experts are yet to find a cure. Cancer and AID/HIV was not in the medical dictionary in the past until the nineteenth century. The benign Father in Heaven is not sleeping over the horrible problems of mankind. He had opened His door of mercy unto mankind that the medical break through may be perfected to confront the perennial medical problems.

We learnt that the genetic engineers are now cloning animals and growing ears, kidneys, hearts and other parts of human organs in their laboratories probably to experiment on how these medical discoveries could be used to repair the ailing organs of mankind. It is also learnt that the raw materials for these experimental human organs farm are the aborted fetus harvested from abortion procedures. It is not only how worrisome the raw materials are obtained but the chains of unrighteousness that surrounded the act. The fact that we must know is that, God will not give man a vision without provision. A righteous God that gave a commandment, ‘Thou shall not kill,’ to man, will not go around his own words and channels the thought of man to harvest aborted fetus as a raw materials to the genetic engineers to grow human organs in the laboratories just two years after the break through of Genome Project. There is no doubt that these genius of our time have good intentions in applying their wisdom to solve human problems but it is obvious that God want the technology of Genome Project to be righteously applied to benefit the whole world. If the whole world can wait for the moment of the revelation of the breakthrough, God will also lead man to the discovery of righteous raw materials and procedures in using the technology to benefit humanity.

The Christians all over the world should at this time seek the face of God that He may touch the hearts of the world leaders and representatives of the world reputable organization like United Nations that it may use its strength and power to create a body that should introduce a stringent measure that will directly or indirectly entrench the fear of God in the policy regulating the application of the project world wide. The major problem of the world in the 19^th century was nuclear proliferation and added to the already existing problem, the world populace cannot afford to experience another nightmare of biological warfare. Failure to introduce this measure as soon as possible will amount to an indirect permission to the proliferation of biological warfare through out the world in the 20^th century. The atmosphere of war is still tense and the activities of the terrorist are well pronounced especially now. An unscrupulous nation with a lot of money to throw around may buy the technological know-how and apply it to the detriment of international community. I am really concerned that, as time goes on in the century, the army of the wicked nation may be designed on the computer and manufactured in the laboratory to comprise of genetic modified human being that is made of combination of genes of polar-bear for ferocious attack, genes of lion for aggressiveness, genes of elephant for awesome size and genes of human being for the purpose of control. The bees or the wasps or other insects may be modified to be so aggressive in the way it attacks and becomes an agent that will be released to the wild to launch biological weapons.

Let us look inward in the application of the wisdom that God has given us. Are you cleverly applying your wisdom to cheat others and take advantage of the weak around you to benefit yourself? Is your wisdom used to benefit others or to manipulate them? The Bible says, “the wisdom that is from above is pure, peaceable, gentle full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.” (James 3:17) This is the purpose of God in giving man wisdom. Anything short of this is foolishness. “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”’ (Jeremiah 6:16) The whole world will find the peace and rest of God in this century if we apply our wisdom in righteousness and in the fear of God.

Michael A. Eleyinafe