Bible College Is a Safe Environment

Bible College Is a Safe Environment

Another good reason to consider Bible college is that you will be immersed in a safe environment.

When I think of safe environments, I think of clean-rooms where everything is white and germ-free. Or, I think of an overprotective mom who has wrapped her child in bubble wrap so he won’t get any bumps or bruises.

No, Bible college is not exactly that… but it’s close.

Most Bible college students are entering college right out of high school. It is their first time away from home. It is their first taste of “freedom.”

For a parent, giving a child any freedom is terrifying. “What will my child do? Will he make the right choice? Will she follow what we taught her to do?”

Scary thought.

Now, imagine if she was in a situation where everything she had been taught her whole life was being turned on its head. Imagine, for instance, that your child goes to a secular university as a biology major. All her life, all she has known is the Bible and creation. Now, she is immersed in a hostile, Bible-hating environment. She is taught every day and by everyone that creation is a myth and evolution is true science. In essence, she is taught that everything she has ever known is wrong. Her whole world is intensely attacked. From the classroom to the dorm room, from the textbook to the internet chatter—everything is against her.

Safe environment? Hardly. No matter how strong she is, she has to be at least a little bit affected by it all, right?

Now imagine a boy who has been taught that the Bible is God’s Word and that it is absolute truth. Perhaps he does not know all the depths of theology or perhaps he is not able to defend every point of Christianity, but he has a solid grasp of basic Bible doctrines. He has always been taught to use the King James Bible and serve in a local, Independent Baptist church. While he may not completely understand all the reasons, he knows that is what he believes. Imagine, now, that he goes to Bible college. At Bible college, instead of everything he has ever believed being turned on its head, it is reinforced! Rather than hearing all the objections to his core beliefs, he is receiving systematic reasons as to why, in fact, he should believe that way.

Bible college reinforces

Bible college is a safe environment because it reinforces rather than breaks down everything a child has learned in a godly home and in church. At a good Bible college (one recommended by your pastor), the student receives encouragement to follow the Bible. Any prospective student should be wary of any institution that will cause doubts about whether the Bible is God’s Word.

Will a child fail at life if he does not attend Bible college? Of course not. But Bible college can only help reinforce what has always been taught at home and in the home church.

Bible college in general is safer

Not only is Bible college a safe place for a person’s beliefs, but life in general is safer. I do not necessarily mean that driving conditions are safer or the weather is milder; rather, I mean that living in a structured environment with rules similar to home will help in this transition time of life.

For many students, their first time away from home is when they attend college. Should we automatically assume that they are grown up and can make godly decisions all the time? I don’t even assume that about myself now!

Bible college is regulated, scheduled, strict, and clean

Bible college provides a safe environment because it is regulated, scheduled, strict, and clean. Students are required to sign in and out rather than just given complete freedom to come and go as they please. Having a curfew and lights out rather than allowing an open free-for-all until late into the night. Students are monitored on their ministry involvement, class attendance, workload, academic excellence, church attendance, chapel attendance, and more.

“That’s so strict!” you might think.

Safety always has boundaries and limits. Freedom is never the absence of limitations. Rather, it is an understanding and compliance to those boundaries.

A Bible college student will have much more freedom than he had in high school, no doubt; especially if he is away from home for the first time. However, without unlimited freedom, Bible college is a safer environment than almost any other environment in the world.

Bible college provides a safe environment for all areas of life

Parents, are you worried about what will happen to your child after graduation? Are you battling the internal conflict of wanting them to grow up… but not wanting them to grow up? Are you concerned that no place will be as safe as home? Are you worried they will not be taught well? Or that they will not find good friends? Or that everything they have ever known will be undermined?

Bible college is the safest place you could put them, most likely. As much as humanly possible, Bible college provides a safe environment for teaching, for socializing, and for all areas of life.

About the Author

Ryan Rench serves as the youth director and associate pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, CA, under his father’s leadership, Pastor W. M. Rench. Ryan’s family moved to Temecula in 1987 to plant the church where Ryan was reared and is now on staff. He earned his Master’s Degree in Ministry from Heartland Baptist Bible College in 2010. Ryan Rench married his wife, Jamie, in 2008, and they have three children: Abe, Charlotte, and Gwen. Ryan blogs at RyanRench.com and has published several books, including, A Case For Bible College and One Youth Pastor’s Toolbox, available from Calvary Baptist Publications.