The Big Questions Christians (Start to) Answer in College
College for Christians - Introducing Part Three
“Jesus makes room for your questions.”
I was so happy to hear a guest speaker open a chapel talk that way last year! It’s not that students won’t find answers at Bethel; they will. But sometimes people get the idea that the faithful Christian already has everything already figured out. On the contrary, Christianity is what medieval scholars called a “faith seeking understanding,” and such seeking always starts with questions.
Not just the relatively narrow questions that we’ll take up as this guide moves from choosing a college to choosing how to spend your college years — Should I live on campus? What’s the point of gen ed classes? Is it ever okay to use AI? — Jesus makes room for your questions about truth, identity, meaning, and purpose:
Who am I? What will I do with my life?
What do I believe? What do I value?
Why is there so much suffering and injustice in the world, and can I do anything about it?
They’re questions that are hard to answer without the help of others. You may have already posed versions of them to your parents or grandparents, your teachers or pastor, and other wise people you should continue to ask for advice.
At the same time, questions like these are so personal that you can’t just inherit or imitate their answers. You may respond to them differently than the people who know and love you best.
But now that you’re on the verge of starting college, you have a remarkable opportunity: the chance to ask these questions both more independently and with greater access to knowledge and wisdom past and present, as you take classes with experts in their fields, have conversations with diverse friends, immerse yourself in other cultures, read more widely, and think more deeply.
Not that you have to figure out all the answers before college is done. These are questions that you’ll answer the rest of your life. In fact, you’ll answer most of them with your life.
But if you treat these years spanning adolescence and adulthood as a time to start answering these questions for yourself, you’ll make the most of your college experience as a follower of Jesus Christ.
In this section:
Ch. 12 - “How Will College Help Me to Love God and Love My Neighbor as Myself?”
Ch. 13 - “How Can College Help Me to Discern My Calling?”
Ch. 14 - “How Can College Teach Me to Live ‘In the World, But Not of It’?”