ROCKS
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When I was growing up, my Dad was an avid rock-hound. Both he and my mom enjoyed doing lapidary work. They did beautiful work.
I was not at all interested in rocks. I didn’t even like jewelry. Wearing jewelry made from precious gemstones had no appeal to me whatever.
I did, however, develop an interest in fossils after visiting the amazing Bonnechere Caves near Eganville Ontario.
This interest eventually led to my first job as a Geology Lab Technician both at Carleton University and later at the University of Ottawa making Petrographic Thin Sections from various rocks and mineral samples.
Thin Sections are made by mounting a trimmed sample of flatly ground rock onto a piece of glass that will be used to examine the section using the polarizing light microscope. The thin section needs to be ground to thickness of 30mm. The sections are ground both manually and by the use of a specialized machine until they are reduced to the required thickness.
The discovery of polarized light is a relatively recent discovery. (Early to Mid 1800’s). Polarized light is used in the field of Optical Mineralogy.
In the book of Revelation twelve 12 precious stones are used in the making of the new temple in the New Jerusalem.
It is interesting to note that four of the stones that we consider precious today (for their refractive qualities when polished) are considered to be unusable in the construction of the New Temple.
This video is a brief exposition of Revelation 21:19:
“The walls of Temple in the new Jerusalem were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth only, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, but tenth, turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth, amethyst.”
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As David Pawson Points out in this short video talk, the passage in Revelation 21:19 was written centuries before the discovery of polarized or bi-polarized light. Or polarizing microscopes. We still don’t have a complete understanding of all of the properties of light.
The study of light is fascinating. It is mentioned as the first act of creation in the Bible when God said: Let there be light!
People have debated for centuries as to how there could be light (light: a form of electromagnetic radiation) in the world considering that the sun was not created until the fourth day of creation. But that is a topic for another time.
Light is required for life. Jesus is the author of both light and life.
Only Jesus has the power and authority to illuminate and bring life to His creation and its inhabitants.
But that’s a topic for another time. This topic is about how rocks and precious gems display an array of colours only when seen through a polarizing microscope.
It is awesome to consider how little we know about rocks, Or light. Or the world that we live in. Or God. We know only what has been revealed to us!
What we do know is that light is the first thing God commanded to appear when the world was created.
Scripture also tells us that Jesus is the light of the world.
One must consider that if this is so, then we need also to understand the significance of the creation of our sun four days after the creation of light.
There are many theories and interpretations of that issue. One day we will know for sure!