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Today’s Notes:
I – “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
(Matthew 5:14 – NKJV)
II – “For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light [lead the lives of those native-born to the Light].”
(Ephesians 5:8 – AMPC)
III – “And this is the message [the message of promise] which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you: God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him at all [no, not in any way]. [So] if we say we are partakers together and enjoy fellowship with Him when we live and move and are walking about in darkness, we are [both] speaking falsely and do not live and practice the Truth [which the Gospel presents]. But if we [really] are living and walking in the Light, as He [Himself] is in the Light, we have [true, unbroken] fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses (removes) us from all sin and guilt [keeps us cleansed from sin in all its forms and manifestations].”
(I John 1:5-7 – AMPC)
IV – LIGHT AS ENERGY – Simply stated, light is nature’s way of transferring energy through space. We can complicate it by talking about interacting electric and magnetic fields, quantum mechanics, and all of that, but just remember–light is energy. Light travels very rapidly, but it does have a finite velocity. In a vacuum, the speed of light is 186,282 miles per second (or nearly 300,000 kilometers per second) However, when we start talking about the incredible distances in astronomy, the finite nature of light’s velocity becomes readily apparent. It takes about two and a half seconds, for instance, for a radio communication travelling at the speed of light to get to the moon and back.
You might find it interesting to remember, the next time you watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset, that the sun itself actually dipped below the horizon eight minutes earlier–it takes that long for the light to reach the Earth! And, of course, every newspaper article you ever read about astronomy will always include the required statement, “A light year is the distance light travels in one year at the speed of 186,282 miles per second, about 6 trillion miles.”
Light is more generally referred to as electromagnetic radiation. Too often when we say “light” it is mistaken to mean “optical light,” which is roughly the radiation visible to our eyes. Visible light is a tiny portion of a huge smorgasbord of light called the electromagnetic spectrum. For our convenience, we break this smorgasbord up into different courses (appetizer, salad, etc.) and refer to them by name, such as gamma-rays, X-rays, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and radio. However, it is important to remember that they are all just light. There are no “breaks” and no hard boundaries in the electromagnetic spectrum–just a continuous range of energy.
– Bill Blair
V – “Just asking ‘what is light energy’ opens you up to a flood of other questions trying to narrow down the context that you are asking the question in. In photometry, luminous energy is the perceived energy of light. It can also be defined as the electromagnetic radiation of visible light. Since light itself is energy, then another definition is relevant: light is nature’s way of transferring energy through space.”
– Universe Today
Full text notes (including points VI and VII) can be found here: https://www.bishinthenow.com/teaching-notes-11-3-19