I invite you to take advantage of a double-your-money, dollar-for-dollar match of your gifts in support of The Serious Joy Scholarship until May 31, 2026. A group of faithful friends has pledged to match all contributions up to $500,000. To God be the glory!
The Serious Joy Scholarship enables the students of Bethlehem College and Seminary to receive academically rigorous, God-centered, Bible-saturated instruction at one of the lowest tuition rates in American Christian higher education. We do not rely on federal loan programs but the cheerful contributions of the saints to keep this outstanding education remarkably affordable. This enables our students to launch immediately into life and ministry without the shackles of student loan debt.
If you dropped by on a typical week in the life of Bethlehem College and Seminary, you would hear joyful songs, heartfelt prayers, Christ-exalting preaching in chapel, and rich fellowship around lunch tables. You would see passionate, learned, mature pastor-scholars and diligent students discussing great works of history, literature, and theology, and searching the Scriptures in the original languages. I have served on the Bethlehem faculty since 2009, and it is a special privilege to meet with a room full of earnest students each week this semester to study the book of Revelation in Greek.
This past year, it has been a joy to see many Bethlehem Theological Seminary graduates on my travels to Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, and of course Minnesota. Dozens of alumni pastors from around the country joined us for the recent Serious Joy: Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. Time and again, they testified to the enduring value of the education they received, which equipped them to handle God’s word with clarity and conviction. As I hear these reports and see the disproportionate impact of their faithful ministries, I agree with apostle John’s assessment: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
I am also so encouraged by our Bethlehem College graduates who are witnessing for Christ with wisdom and wonder in a range of vocations. They are pastors and educators, attorneys and consultants, missionaries and mobilizers, entrepreneurs and employees, farmers and electricians, and of course godly husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Our intentional approach to studying Great Books in light of the Greatest Book for the sake of the Great Commission has equipped a growing number of these alumni to excel as teachers and leaders in Classical Christian schools throughout the Midwest and even across the country. What a strategic way to invest their talents in the next generation!
You have the opportunity to double your contributions to this good work now through the May 31, 2026 deadline. The dollar-for-dollar match means that your $100 gift becomes $200. Give $5,000, and it supplies a full $10,000 Serious Joy Scholarship.
Because of your extraordinary investments, pulpits are being filled, ministries resourced, nations reached, families formed, Classical and Christian K-12 schools supplied with teachers, workplaces influenced, and the theological academy seasoned by a new generation of men and women committed to spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. We call this Education in Serious Joy, and I ask you to prayerfully participate in this Make it a Million Match. You can make gifts online at bcsmn.edu/contribute or via the postage-paid envelope provided. Again, only gifts made by May 31 will be matched dollar-for-dollar.
Thank you for partnering with us in this worthy work. We thank God for you.
Yours in Christ,
Brian J. Tabb, Ph.D.
President & Professor of Biblical Studies