The following essay will be part of a future course on Technology and the Kingdom. Rooted in Trinitarian theology, the course will be a primer for believers to navigate the turbulent waters of tech with revelation and wisdom. We want to ground people in the mystery of Christ while also inspiring innovators who leverage technology for the sake of the Gospel. As the world changes, God’s promise to his people has not changed: “You will be the head and not the tail.” 

Humanity and the Microchip

All the wonders of modern technology find their source in a city-like entity called a “microchip.” As we prepare for a deep dive into technology and the Kingdom of God, the microchip—and how it is made—is a fitting place to start.

If this topic interests you (and if you want your mind blown), the following video—just under an hour—walks through mankind’s most astonishing commercial machine, the one responsible for producing the most advanced microchips in the world (as of 2026). It will give you technical detail far beyond what we’ll touch here, but it will sharpen your sense of awe for what we’re about to consider.

The marvel of how computer chips are made is breathtaking on its own. But I want to press into something deeper—something beautiful—about our identity as image-bearers, and how that identity quietly echoes through this small piece of technology that fills our phones, computers, and nearly everything else we touch.

So here are the essentials of how a computer chip is made:

We melt rock.

We imprint an image upon it.

Digital life emerges.

Overly simple, but not untrue. It is, in essence, how advanced computer chips come into being, enabling intelligent human ideas to manifest as sound, light, movement, and meaning on screens and speakers.

Here’s a little more detail.

A particular kind of rock that already that is broken down (i.e. sand) is melted into something that looks like a flawless mirror. This is called a silicon wafer. Onto this wafer, a blast of extraordinarily precise light imprints an image—an impossibly complex pattern. This image becomes a system of pathways through which electricity flows. (Some of these pathways are only a few atoms wide!)

Information is “processed” as electricity moves through this patterned image—twisting, branching, colliding, cooperating. And somewhere in that movement, something remarkable happens. Art emerges. Music pours into the air. Worlds unfold with stories, characters, and soundtracks. Human imagination, once locked inside a mind, finds a body.

The possibilities feel nearly endless.

And yet, we’ll pause for a moment.

Because what we are witnessing is not merely a technical achievement. It is a parable.

The Parallels to Our Creation

Perhaps you can already sense the connection to our own creation.

Our Creator took the rocky clay of the earth, molded and shaped it, and imprinted His image into it. Humanity began as dust lovingly formed and then kissed with intention.

Just as light is used to imprint an image onto a silicon wafer, God released His breath—His Word—into us. But Scripture combines God’s Word and God’s Light. Jesus is introduced to us as both. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” He is the Word spoken, the Light revealed, the Image made visible.

Jesus, then, is the infinitely complex image imprinted upon our being.

On the “mirror” of our humanity rests the very likeness of the Son. We are children of God, created and imaged after the eternal Son of God—the One who has always existed as the Father’s beloved, His ever-present reflection. Before we ever did anything right or wrong, before we processed a single thought or made a single choice, our design was relational. We were patterned after Sonship.

As image-bearers of the Son, we possess within us the capacity to “process” the pathways of His life—what Scripture calls righteousness. Not as moral performance, but as lived expression. His life is meant to move through us.

Within a microchip, unimaginably small wires carry the flow of electricity. These pathways are what allow the chip to come alive with information. Without the current, the image remains dormant. The design is there, but the power has not yet arrived.

So it is with us.

We “light up” as divine life flows through us. The Spirit of God moves like an electric current—not impersonal, but intimate—energizing what was always meant to be there. The Holy Spirit gives life to our design, revealing the meaning of the intricate image within us. We awaken to the stunning truth that we were made not merely to resemble God, but to reflect and embody the life of His Son.

This is why the Christian life is not about self-improvement. It is about animation. It is about a design finally receiving the power it was made for.

Of course, analogies drawn from the world around us can only take us so far. They are meant to bring us to one port, where we can jump on another path that takes us further. At some point, we must leave the metaphor of technology behind, because we are not machines. We are not programs running code. We are sons and daughters.

To go further, we will need an entirely different language: one of family, intimacy, inheritance, and love. Keep that in mind as we move forward. Every analogy must eventually bow to relationship.

And yet, there is still truth here.

We are, in a very real sense, “programmed” to embody the life of God. That life expresses itself not as cold logic, but as radiant beauty. Scripture describes it in all the colors and sounds of love—things such as joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. These are not behaviors we strain to manufacture, but natural displays of a design functioning as intended.

This is what it looks like when the image lights up.

But there is another sobering reality.

Just as a system can receive corrupted data, human beings can receive information from false “spirits.” Scripture speaks plainly about this. Not every voice that enters us is life-giving. Some ideas lodge themselves like a virus, distorting the pathways, hijacking the flow, redirecting desire.

When that happens, we begin to operate outside our original design. Sexual immorality, debilitating addiction, fits of rage, deep self-loathing—these are not expressions of who we truly are. They are symptoms of interference. Corrupted signals running through sacred circuitry.

Left unchecked, this distortion always leads toward fragmentation and self-destruction. Not because God is punishing us, but because life cannot flourish when it is cut off from its true power source.

The tragedy is not that humanity is broken beyond repair.

The tragedy is that we forget what we were made for.

And this is where the conversation about technology, power, image, and the Kingdom of God begins to sharpen. Because whatever we build will inevitably reflect how we understand ourselves.

To be continued…