“School is pointless.”
Coming from my respected tutor (playing the devil’s advocate) in my sophomore year of high school, those shocking words nearly made me drop my mechanical pencil to the hideously carpeted floor.
I had always accepted school as a necessary (if sometimes evil) fact of life, never once questioning the validity of its existence. Now, I was stunned to realize that I had no coherent answer. Throughout the next perplexing hour, I and roughly 15 of my classmates fruitlessly discussed why we were even in school at all.
In the past few years, I have contemplated this quandary. As the daunting prospect of college loomed nearer in my future, my need for answers became even more urgent.
If our goal is to spread the good news, and if we have so few years to accomplish that on this earth, why, I wondered, should we ‘waste’ four, five or (heaven forbid) six years in college? How could I consider myself deserving enough to spend (cringe) countless thousands of dollars on college, especially when there is so much need in the world?
In the past year, however, God has slowly illustrated to me the richness of a scholarly Christian community like Biola, my new home.
For me, the realization that not only the next few years, but my entire life, will be impacted by my time here opened my eyes to see our school’s significance.
Inside our “Biola bubble,” we have the unique, probably once in a lifetime opportunity to become trained in the word of God, educated in our fields and instructed in how to fuse the two into our futures while living in a Christ-saturated community. We have the opportunity to become deeper thinkers and more passionate souls, equipped and eager to bring about God’s kingdom on earth, alongside both professors who have gone before us and students who are journeying with us.
However, becoming equipped for our futures as God’s children of light in a world of darkness is not a passive experience. It is only in applying all of our minds, as well as our hearts, to this challenging task of education set before us, that we begin to take full advantage of these formative and valuable college years.
We have the task, too, not just to gain knowledge, but to gain character. C.S. Lewis once noted, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” Knowledge without love and goodness is utterly worthless. Our job is to be, as Christ exhorted his disciples, “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
The world desperately needs insightful, skilled Christian leaders who firmly know what and why they believe in all fields. It is, in fact, our responsibility to learn the answers to the difficult questions and “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). No price tag can be placed on the transformation of our hearts and renewal of our minds, which will outwardly and naturally impact the world for Christ. Ultimately, I believe the outcome will be worth the cost.
So the next time you find yourself gaping at your next school payment, cramming at 2 a.m. for a midterm, or simply missing home, remember why you are here, and continue the course. After all, the words “pointless” and “Biola” don’t even belong in the same sentence.
