Have you read a book called The Stairway to Life: An Origin-of-Life Reality Check by Tan & Stadler? You can find it on Amazon. It's pretty short and will get you thinking rigorously about the problem.
Also searchable by its other title "God of the Gaps Volume 6,000 - Forget the Other 5999, This Time We're Really Sure, Can You Stop Doing Research Now Please"
And I'm not opposed to doing research, of course (hard to believe I have to clarify this)
In fact I want people to research the question of the origin of life as rigorously and exhaustively as possible because it is just going to make it that much more obvious that life was designed by God.
I have absolutely no fear that this "gap" is going to do anything but widen.
No. But I feel like it is unlikely I'll find much value in it. Part 1 being on the Venter work does NOT inspire confidence at all. Not to dismiss them - they're great I've worked with them on a couple projects - but it frankly doesn't have anything to do with abiogenesis. The other fact that lots of creationists like it doesn't bode well either.
Like, of COURSE the Venter cell looks too complicated to originate from raw chemicals! The lineage it evolved from was far more complex, and Mycoplasma underwent minimization. Minimal life also does not equal simple life, or life that was most probable to arise from chemicals. Just a stupid premise, really.