Yose ben Yoezer said, "Let your home be a meeting-house for the sages, and cover yourself with the dust of their feet, and drink in their words thirstily." (Avot 1:4)

The teaching at VIA is relevant and simple yet filled with discovery and insight. We are committed to serious truth in the context of real life. We believe the Bible to be the "very words of God" (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and so it is our foundation, starting point, and compass. However, like a beautifully cut solitaire diamond, the Text can be turned, and new refractions of beauty will shine; new insights and understandings will come to light. One famous rabbinical saying is, "There are seventy faces to the Torah," (Num. Rab. 13.15 and parallels) meaning that biblical texts are not static, monolithically interpreted entities. The Scriptures are alive. They move, they breathe, they are actively revealing deeper and greater truths that enlighten us to reality, and transform how we practice life.

Placing that diamond in its setting will also allow the jewel to shine. We believe that the Text of the Bible was never intended to be read, interpreted, or understood in an esoteric religious vacuum. We actively pursue a variety of cultural windows of both then and now and have found that those perspectives bring the Bible to light. That means, first, the Bible is read as a story, not as a systematized religious handbook. To follow Jesus is a commitment to the whole of the story, not just a verse or two that summarizes our existence. Second, it means that ancient Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Mesopotamian cultures are relevant to the stories, and the people of those times have something to say about the truths recorded in the pages of our modern-day Bible. We are not in any way expected to know about these "Biblical backdrops," on our own, but we do rejoice in our God-given ability to discover. We don't wallow in ignorance, we rejoice in the discovery that grows from ignorance. And this is the journey every human on the face of the planet is on.

Our pursuit in the gatherings of VIA is to deepen our understanding of Jesus and the early disciples in the world and context in which they lived. We then pursue the world and context in which we live, and not solely apply precepts, but we strive to live out the continued movements which God has been actively participating in throughout history.

May your understanding of Jesus, the Bible, and the early followers be enlightened and enriched as we learn together through these windows of understanding.