Epoch-making trajectories of life are being set for students in this pivotal period between the ages of 18 and 25—decisions about God, the Bible, the gospel, the meaning of life, vocation, and marriage.

We think it is a golden opportunity for students to wrestle with these realities, not in a 200-person classroom but in a 200-person college: embedded in the life of churches, rubbing shoulders with like-minded lovers of the Truth, led by mature scholar-mentors who know them and love them.

Bethlehem College is not a Bible college, but everything we do is built on the Bible, saturated with the Bible, guided by the Bible. We love the inerrant word of God. We call it 

“Great Books in Light of the Greatest Book for the sake of the Great Commission.”

“Education in Serious Joy”
John Piper
The 35th Bethlehem Conference
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We are aware—painfully aware—that the culture into which these students are launching is in moral freefall. A very unusual combination of courage and compassion is going to be required of these students. We want them to have backbones of unbending steel and hearts of unremitting sacrificial service. We want them to be able to defend the biblical vision of marriage between a man and a woman; the beauty of God-given, complementarian, sexual identity; the wisdom of biblical justice; and the urgency of world evangelization.

Years ago, decades ago, when I looked at the upcoming generations of students, I said

“Their God is too small,” and “Their reading is too passive.”

 And so our aims became: build into their lives a massive, glorious, all-satisfying sovereign God of grace, and train them in assiduous attentiveness in all their reading, whether reading their Bible or whether they are reading the world, so that it is all fruitful for a lifetime.

With the result that everything they lay their eyes on from that day forward would be observed accurately, understood clearly, evaluated fairly, felt properly, applied wisely, and expressed compellingly. All of that for their joy, the joy of their souls, for the everlasting good of the world and the church, and for the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

We call this 

“Education in Serious Joy.”

For more information visit https://bcsmn.edu/global/