Light Through The Window

In chapter 11:34, Jesus tells us that the light of the body enters through the eye. Again, Jesus uses an excellent and truthful example to illustrate His point. According to an article by Ker Than, a writer for LiveScience, this is how the human eye works. You can visit the article to read it in its entirety at http://www.livescience.com/health/051128_eye_works.html, but for the sake of illustration, I will highlight the article.

The human eye belongs to a general group of eyes found in nature called “camera-type eyes.” Instead of film, the human eye focuses light onto a light sensitive membrane called the retina.

The cornea is a transparent structure found in the very front of the eye that helps to focus incoming light. Behind the cornea is a colored ring-shaped membrane called the iris. The iris has an adjustable circular opening called the pupil, which can expand or contract depending on the amount of light entering the eye. A clear fluid called the aqueous humor fills the space between the cornea and the iris.

Situated behind the pupil is a colorless, transparent structure called the crystalline lens. Ciliary muscles surround the lens. The muscles hold the lens in place but they also play an important role in vision.

When the muscles relax, they pull on and flatten the lens, allowing the eye to see objects that are far away. To see closer objects clearly, the ciliary muscle must contract in order to thicken the lens.

The interior chamber of the eyeball is filled with a jelly-like tissue called the vitreous humor. After passing through the lens, light must travel through this humor before striking the sensitive layer of cells called the retina.

The retina is the innermost of three tissue layers that make up the eye. The outermost layer, called the sclera, is what gives most of the eyeball its white color. The cornea is also a part of outer layer.

The middle layer between the retina and sclera is called the choroid. The choroid contains blood vessels that supply the retina with nutrients and oxygen and removes its waste products.

Embedded in the retina are millions of light sensitive cells, which come in two main varieties: rods and cones.

Rods are good for monochrome vision in poor light, while cones are used for color and for the detection of fine detail. Cones are packed into a part of the retina directly behind the retina called the fovea.

When light strikes either the rods or the cones of the retina, it's converted into an electric signal that is relayed to the brain via the optic nerve. The brain then translates the electrical signals into the images we see.

It is amazing to me that this man wrote this wonderful explanation of how the human eye works and Jesus summed it all up with verse 34. What we read, watch at the movies or on television and what we participate on a personal basis is all entered into our consciousness through sensory collectors like our eyes and ears.

Now, I am not one of those who says that we must cut ourselves off from things like television or movies. I do avoid visual entertainment that is blatantly offensive and at odds with God but even when I am watching something that should be all right, I am prepared to quit watching when it starts to go south and crosses the line that I have set.

There are many movies, television and radio shows that I avoid, simply because I know that my allowing them into my life, through my senses, will not help me with my walk.

To close out this particular subject, I would like to show you another article that covers a part of the point that I am trying to make. It’s source is the same website that the above article came from and can be read in its entirety when you visit the Live Science web site.

Erotic and Violent Images Cloud Vision, Study Finds

When people see violent or erotic images, they fail to process whatever they see next, according to new research.

Scientists are calling the effect "attentional rubbernecking."

“We observed that people fail to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after viewing neutral images,” said Vanderbilt University psychologist David Zald.

The effect is akin to rubbernecking on the highway, Zald and his colleagues say. Your brain might suggest you watch the road ahead, but your emotions force you to look at the accident on the side of the road.

Research subjects were handed a stack of pictures that included pleasant landscapes and architectural photos. They were told to search for a particular image. Negative images were placed anywhere from two to eight spots before the search target.

The closer the negative image was to the target picture, the more frequently people failed to spot the target.

In a follow-up study, negative images were replaced by erotic shots. The effect was the same.

"This suggests that emotionally arousing images impact attention in similar ways whether they are perceived as positive or negative," said colleague Steven Most of Yale University.

The researchers suspect we can't control the effect.

"We think that there is essentially a bottleneck for information processing and if a certain type of stimulus captures attention, it can basically jam up that bottleneck so subsequent information can't get through," Zald said.

As for rubbernecking on the road, Zald has a caution:

"If you are simply driving down the road and you see something that is sexually explicit on a billboard, the odds are that it is going to capture your attention and – for a fraction of a second afterwards – you will be less able to pay attention to other information in your environment," he said.

The initial study is detailed in the August issue of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. The follow-up research has not been published.

In reading Luke 11:33 through 35, we find that the teachings of Jesus are not only of value from a moral standpoint, but in their simplicity, explain the complicated nature of the human creation and His explanation of how the mind and body works.

Those that believe that Jesus was just another holy man or prophet, miss this opportunity to appreciate His insight as the Creator as well as the Savior.