The Eyes Have It

The subject of social media and artificial intelligence has come up on recent episodes in two different podcasts that I listen to. (Links are below.) In both cases, they warned of the increasing relational disconnect that we are experiencing. We are made for connection with other people. One of the first skills we learned as infants was to make eye contact with our parents. And before long, we learned how to follow someone else’s gaze to see what they were looking at. Sight, sound, and touch are vital to our development as children and our health as adults. Those with visual or auditory deficits rely on their other senses even more. (Imagine if Helen Keller had never had Anne Sullivan to learn from.) It has long been known that infants don’t thrive if they are kept isolated or ignored in their cribs.

I watched a behind the scenes clip from a favorite PBS drama, and was a little surprised to hear one of the directors say that he prefers real film for close-up scenes because the digital cameras somehow lose the sparkle in the eyes. Actors look less human simply by using digital technology.

Why is it that we have accepted so readily this disembodied life that technology facilitates? Why is it so easy for us to self-isolate and pull away from small groups and corporate worship? I believe this is one of the great deceptions foisted on us by the enemy of our souls, that screens are an acceptable alternative to life together. It’s ironic that we turn from the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5) and we turn to media that is neither god nor man.

When God created the world, He quickly proclaimed, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). He wasn’t referring just to marriage, but to relationships with others as well. Apparently, it was also a regular practice for God Himself to show up in the Garden of Eden and talk with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:8). Then in the turning point of the biblical narrative, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Though there were written Scriptures, the incarnation was essential because God is a relational being. He could have created some impersonal method of salvation, but that wasn’t good enough for His plan. He wasn’t just saving people from their sin and its consequences. He was saving them to relationship with Him for eternity. And not just with Him, but with all of His children by faith.

I have a suspicion that in the new heavens and new earth, there’s going to be a lot less reliance on technology and a lot more relational interaction, because that is how God designed us. My local grocery store just installed several self-checkouts, despite the fact that they’d tried once before and no one used them. Even though I’m not a terribly social person, I want to interact with real cashiers and at least try to share a smile with them and thank them for their work.

Facebook seems to think that all I need in life is more videos of pandas rolling down hills, and ideas for new Lego builds. But what I need, and what I think we all need, are reminders that there are real people who will look us in the eye and actually see us for who we are. We need that in our daily lives, at work or school, running errands, and especially through our local churches as we connect with one another and worship God together.

Technology can sometimes help to keep lines of communication open (though it can also hurt too), but screens can never replace relationships with real people. Let’s not let them.

“For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them” (Matt. 13:14, quoting Isaiah 6:9-10).

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Russell Moore interview with Nicholas Carr- “Building Attention in a Digital Age”

Geoff Holsclaw interview with Joshua Cocanye- “Why We Gather: The Neuroscience Behind Corporate Worship”

The Life of Helen Keller film segment

© 2025 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Believing Is Seeing

There is a line in the movie Polar Express that caught my attention this Christmas: “Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing.” Of course, the movie is referring to all the things related to Santa, the North Pole, and the express train. However, the same might truthfully be said of faith in Jesus Christ, and it would not be perpetuating a myth. For those of us who have faith in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, belief helps us to see and understand things that we likely wouldn’t otherwise. When Jesus was on earth, He spoke in symbolic parables. When His followers asked why, He told them,

“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand’” (Luke 8:10).

There were many people in His day who saw Him, watched Him heal people, and heard Him teach, and yet they never believed that He was the Messiah, the Savior who had been prophesied. At the end of His time on earth, Jesus said to “doubting” Thomas,

“Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

The Apostle Paul wrote,

“For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Rom. 10:13-14).

He doesn’t link belief with seeing proof, but with hearing truth proclaimed. But even then, it’s not that every question has irrefutable answers. Few people can point to logic and documented evidence that convinced them of the truth of Christianity, although such people do exist (Lee Strobel is one). Faith in God can sound like folly to those who don’t have it.

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:21-24).

Faith itself is a gift from God— “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). God’s action always precedes our response. He grants us faith, we come to believe, and we begin to see the truth of God’s revelation through creation, Scripture, and His people. Believing is seeing.

It may sound as though God predestines some people to never have faith in Him, but God will never turn away anyone who genuinely wants to know Him. He works in many varied ways to stir one’s curiosity and to bring them to the point of belief.

During the Christmas season, where Christianity and culture intersect, it’s quite possible that unbelievers may look at us and think we’re just as naive as little children who believe in Santa Claus. We can try to explain our faith to the best of our ability, but some people will never understand or believe, and that is to their own peril. There is coming a day when “every eye will see Him: (Rev. 1:7), and on that day it will be too late for those who insist that seeing is believing and who think they need concrete proof before they will accept Jesus as Savior and follow Him as Lord. I pray that many will turn to Him as that final day comes ever closer.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

 

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

What Do You See?

After Jesus was arrested, Peter followed along behind. Luke records the following:

“Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, ‘This man also was with Him.’ … And a little later someone else saw him and said, ‘You also are one of them.’ … And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, ‘Certainly this man also was with Him, for he too is a Galilean” (Luke 22:56, 58, 59 ESV).

Although Scripture doesn’t specify, Luke gives the impression that at least the first girl recognized Peter from having seen him with Jesus. Matthew’s account says that one of the three people commented on Peter’s accent. His Galilean heritage was evident in some way.

Similar events occur in the book of Acts. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (4:13). This time Peter didn’t deny it even though it brought danger to him. “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (4:19-20). The appearance of the resurrected Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit gave Peter an assurance and confidence that he didn’t have before.

Another passage in Acts is worth mentioning. Paul encountered a crippled man at Lystra. “And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’ And he sprang up and began walking” (14:9-10). Something about the man’s appearance revealed his faith. Was it a twinkle in his eye? A look of desperation? Was he trying to get up even before he was healed?

All that makes me wonder—what do people see when they look at you or me? Do they recognize that we have been with Jesus? Do they see that we have faith? Do they hear it in our “accent” and the words we use? Do they know that it is because of Christ that we live and act the way we do? Conversely, do our words and deeds show that our loyalties are no different from the rest of the world? Do we blend into the crowd so well that no one would suspect us of being Christians?

When we interact with other people, do we look for signs of faith in them? It seems to me that evangelism has to start there. It’s easy to go through life not even seeing the people around us—the cashier, the waitress, the mechanic—they just become blurred faces on the way to somewhere else. I know I’m often guilty of this. I suspect that if we took the time and effort to really see people, we’d see a lot more evidence of faith than we might think, whether it is someone who is searching for the truth or someone who is growing in their faith. That can then become the starting point for a deeper conversation and opportunity for connection.

My challenge for all of us is to take a look at our own lives to see what’s showing, but also to look at those around us and really see them.

“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.