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Review: Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth about God by Tim Challies and Josh Byers



Review: Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth about God
Tim Challies and Josh Byers
Zondervan
2016

Interesting concept book.  I’ve not seen anything quite like it elsewhere and suspect that for some this one would be quite helpful.  And that is why I find myself in a love/hate quandary over this one.  Challies narratives present the 101 theology basics to the reader.  The last section Live for Christ being the best of the lot as far as readability goes.  The others are the reason theology has such an uphill climb with most people.  Accurate, factual, categorized.  Dry as the bones Elijah saw in the desert.  The same ones that as they acquired meat and sinew and skin came to life.  Theology is just one of those areas that need more than skeletons to make it palatable.  
Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth About God 
Challies, to his credit, says as much in his introduction.  It takes more than looking at the equipment in the gym.  You gotta work it.  And this book just scratches the surface, almost.  Hence, the love/hate relationship with this book.  

Yes, there are some things we need to know and learn and practice.  And this is the crash course.  I felt as if I was reading the script that went with a very sophisticated power point presentation.  I nearly lost it completely with the flowchart, How to put sin to death (96-97). 
As you can see, this book, even though the graphics are great, just isn’t for me.  For the person that can relate more fully with a business or updated classroom style it may be just what you need.  Overall even though I don’t like this book I can also recommend it as a starting point.  It will not help the cause of theology for the novice and that is a shame.  The study of God can be the most amazing study ever.  

I received this book form the publisher in exchange for a review.

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