The Great Divide
Stephen Venable
Drive through the Midwest for long enough and a surreal experience begins to overtake you. The highway cuts across the flat landscape and disappears into the horizon with no sign of ever relenting from its monotonous course. Staring off into the distance you begin to fear that you are not on the interstate at all, […]
The Prison Called Freedom
Stephen Venable
“They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” (2 Peter 2:19) In our earliest and most formative years within this culture, a very potent message was communicated to us. It has continued to to be instilled in our souls from virtually every […]
The School of Sickness
Stephen Venable
I woke up yesterday morning thinking it was going to be a normal day. “Normal” for our family includes various struggles with chronic illness, but I wasn’t expecting anything beyond that. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, sickness decided to pay us a visit in the form of a vomiting 6-year-old. No one who is sick or […]
Beholding Jesus Specifically-Part 2
Stephen Venable
In the previous post I used the example of the divinity of Jesus to raise the question of what the implications would be for someone if the knowledge of Jesus never moves from being general to specific. For one thing, they will probably stop answering the door when a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness comes […]
Beholding Jesus Specifically-Part 1
Stephen Venable
In Ephesians 3:8, Paul says that he had been given the grace to “preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.” To the church in Colossi he said that hidden in this Man who is the mystery of God are “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3). We must behold Jesus personally, and we must behold […]
Beholding Jesus Personally
Stephen Venable
The previous post in this series focused on beholding Jesus biblically. The second general principle for moving forward in the study of the truth about Jesus is to make it personal. In this context the contrast would not be impersonal, but rather conceptual. Since our eyes cannot see Him right now, the propensity is for […]
Getting Older and Dying Younger
Stephen Venable
Last month I turned thirty-five. Aging and all that it brings with it is a surreal experience and I find it hard to figure out how I got here. Yet this birthday has caused me to think much more about the next ten years of life than the previous decade. I wonder what they will […]
Beholding Jesus Biblically
Stephen Venable
The previous post briefly identified the challenge of both beginning and progressing in Christology. Irrespective of the chosen methodology, the first general principle that must be adhered to is a commitment to behold Jesus biblically. If one thinks that this is so obvious that it does not need to be stated, and much less expounded […]
Charting a Course in Christology
Stephen Venable
Where do you begin searching out the knowledge of Jesus? And where do you go from there? These are two very important questions, and not always the easiest to find clear answers to. Christology literally means the ordered knowledge of Christ (see previous post for an introduction to the significance of Christology). “Christ” is the […]
Christology and Christianity
Stephen Venable
In order to understand the importance of knowing the truth about Jesus (Christology) it is first necessary to remember the true nature of Christianity itself. The latter is not a lifestyle, a moral code, a system of religious rituals, or a corpus of shared beliefs. Christianity is very simply a dynamic relationship with a Person, the […]
Jesus at the Crossroads
Stephen Venable
There are so many words about so many things in our day (see the vision of this site). Some of these are bad, some are neutral, some are positive. There are scores of subjects that range from irrelevant to pressing and then across a spectrum of interesting in between. It is easy for our eyes to shift […]
The Problem of the Prophets
Stephen Venable
“He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. “Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household; With him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, […]
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