There’s no doubt you saw it AND that you had an opinion on it—the viral pic of a wedding dress—is it white and gold or blue and black? That question taunted the internet and social media for days.
It all began when a mother-of-the-bride sent a pic to the bride and groom of the dress she planned to wear to her daughter’s wedding. They were confounded. The bride saw the dress as white and gold; the groom saw it as blue and black. Before the feud could threaten their upcoming nuptials, they posted the pic to Facebook and solicited the opinions of their friends to end the debate.
Alas, it only ignited even greater debate. Within hours, the pic had gone viral and, it seemed, the entire world was debating the issue. People standing in the same room, at the same time, saw the dress as different colors. What’s more, some saw the dress as white and gold one minute, then as blue and black the next.
Color perception experts soon began weighing in on the phenomenon.
Adam Rogers, writing for SCIENCE on Wired.com, explains it this way:
Light enters the eye through the lens—different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. The light hits the retina in the back of the eye where pigments fire up neural connections to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes those signals into an image. Critically, though, that first burst of light is made of whatever wavelengths are illuminating the world, reflecting off whatever you’re looking at. Without you having to worry about it, your brain figures out what color light is bouncing off the thing your eyes are looking at, and essentially subtracts that color from the “real” color of the object. “Our visual system is supposed to throw away information about the illuminant and extract information about the actual reflectance,” says Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington. “But I’ve studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen.” (Neitz sees white-and-gold.)
In other words, our brains recognize that the shading of the light that is illuminating an object can alter the “real” appearance of that object, so our brains have been programmed to filter out the illumination and focus primarily on the light waves reflecting off the object itself. As keen a computer as our brain is, it is not always able to make that distinction.
Scientists and graphic designers have both since taken long looks at the dress, both in photos and in real life. Their conclusion? The dress is indeed blue and black, not white and gold. While the context of the illuminating light (at the time the photo was taken) created a nearly perfectly ambiguous image, diagnostics of the RGB values (the color saturations of the dress itself) were able to conclusively determine its true color.
So, the confusion over the color of the mother-of-the-bride dress is the result of "a nearly perfectly ambiguous image."
Perfect ambiguity--sounds like the moral state of the world we live in today! What is white or black--blue or gold? Right and wrong have become confused by the spiritual context of our age.
Just as the light that illuminates an object can alter the appearance of that object, so the opinions and influences of the world can alter our perceptions and cloud our discernment. Yet even as there is a right answer to the true colors of a dress, there is a right answer to the question of what is morally right or wrong.
So often, finding the truth is simply a matter of filtering out the extraneous, competing waves of worldly opinion that would blind us to the genuine reflection of God's truth.
“All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6, NLT).
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel” (Proverbs 12:15, NASB).
“There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,” (Proverbs 14:12, NASB; cf, Proverbs 16:25 et al).
Dr. Paul Chappell of the Lancaster Baptist Church reminds us of an infamous case of misguided direction:
There were 128 runners in the field for the cross country race at the 1993 NCAA Division II Track and Field Championships.
As they set out on the 6.2 mile run, they were following a course that had been marked for them by the race officials. Toward the end of the course, one of the runners in the middle of the group realized something was wrong. Mike Delcavo of Western State College in Colorado saw that the main pack had missed the turn. "I was waving for them to follow me and yelling 'this is the right way,'" he told an interviewer after the race.
Delcavo was right -- but only four other runners followed him. The rest continued on the shortcut, which allowed them to run a shorter distance and finish the race sooner. In a widely-criticized decision, race officials allowed the abbreviated route to stand as the "official course" and Delcavo officially finished 123rd.
The LA Times reports Delcavo saying, "I'm upset. If I had stayed on the wrong course, I would have finished respectably. But when you read the official results, I'm 123 out of 128 runners."
Sometimes the world rewards those who take moral short cuts while punishing those who actually do the right thing. We should do the right thing anyway, knowing that it is from the Lord that we will receive the reward that really matters.
"Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ" (Colossians 3:24, NLT). "Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor's crown except by competing according to the rules" (2 Timothy 2:5).
Alternative Application:
Have you ever noticed how the world determines the right path from the wrong path? It's whatever is chosen by the majority. What's considered the wrong path yesterday becomes "the official course" today, should enough people decide to take it. The moral direction of the world is ever changing and can only be anticipated by polls and surveys. Not true of God, or of the path that He calls us to take. God, the author of truth, is unchanging.
Don't follow the majority onto the wrong path expecting the way of the majority to change the rules in the end. If you do, you will be sorely disappointed at the outcome.
"You can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way" (Matthew 7:13, NLT).
Illustration Exchange
Richard D. Philips recalls a story told by James Montgomery Boice, his late pastor and colleague:
He was on a plane and the woman seated next to him learned he was a Christian minister. She began to bring out all her objections about Christianity. First she spoke of original sin, how it made no sense and how she would not accept it. Dr. Boice replied, "I see, but is it true?" Next she went on to the idea of judgment and hell, how uncivilized and amoral all of it was. "I see how you feel, but is it true?" he replied. She went on to the next topic and then the next, each with the same response. Finally she erupted with her great distaste for everything taught in the Bible, how it wasn't modern or appealing to her way of thinking. As Dr. Boice began to open his mouth one last time, she exclaimed, "Oh, I know, I know, none of that matters. 'Is it true?' you are going to say!"
James Montgomery Boice (1938 - 2000) was senior pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was also president and cofounder of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, the parent organization of The Bible Study Hour on which Boice was a speaker for more than thirty years.
Whether the subject is original sin or Hell or salvation by grace, the non-believer struggles to accept what the Bible has to say whenever it challenges a belief in the innate goodness of man. So, mankind naturally rejects these doctrines, not because they are false but because they are distasteful.
"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).