Address delivered by academic dean and professor, Dr. Zach Howard, to incoming college and seminary students at orientation during Bethlehem’s Welcome Week.
It is my joy to welcome you to Bethlehem College and Seminary this morning. You have been guided by our Admissions team to this moment and now there is a delightful passing of the baton as Academics takes over.
As we begin today, I want to say a brief word about what we are welcoming you into here at Bethlehem. Bethlehem College and Seminary exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. We fulfill that mission by teaching students. In other words, we exist to spread a passion for God’s supremacy by teaching.
Today you join us in that mission as a student. Today your vocation as a Bethlehem student begins. I want to orient you to that vocation in two ways.
First, let me point you to the central task here at Bethlehem. We want you to join us in the mission to spread a passion for God’s supremacy by equipping you to see how all things hold together in Christ. Bethlehem’s institutional seal is anchored by Colossians 1:17 – Omnia In Christo Constant – in Christ all things hold together.
Your study here at Bethlehem in every subject begins with Christ, advances through Christ, and ends on Christ. He is both the way and the destination. We make sense of all things in Christ, from pagan philosophy to Old Testament exegetical problems. All things cohere in Christ. We believe that is true and our central task is to see how that is true, savor the reality, and then show it by what we say and how we live. But how we see that all things cohere in Christ really matters too.
That is the second part I want to orient you to. We believe education happens best in community, pursuing Christ shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow students, your professors, and as members of a local church. This is because you cannot download wisdom. There is no Airdrop option for prudence. Wisdom comes first, and most naturally, from parents. It happens through daily imitation in the home. This is why Paul says to his spiritual sons, “imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).
In an age of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, you have chosen an education that is remarkably counter-cultural not because it is absolutely against those things but because it offers something those things cannot offer: wisdom. Wisdom is not earned in the artificial or the virtual but when a human being learns by living daily alongside wise men and women in the real world. It’s learned in the Hall of Tyrannous not just from the Apostle Paul’s words but from his very way of life among the people of Ephesus for two full years (Acts 19). Wisdom is learned not merely from reading a book or writing an essay but by imitating a way of life.
So welcome to your vocation as a student at Bethlehem College and Seminary. Welcome to several years of life-on-life, face-to-face education in a close-knit community. Here, in this city, in this neighborhood, in this building, with these professors and classmates who love you and care about the outcome of your faith, you will be changed. I guarantee it. Because real-world experience transforms us.
Our aim is that you would be transformed from one degree of glory to the next by encountering Christ as you pour over difficult books seeking to wrestle their meaning to the ground, as you debate with wit and wonder in the classroom the ideas that both compel and repel you, as you counsel and encourage one another late at night and at the lunch table, as you go Godward together at chapel on Wednesdays, and, most importantly, with your church family on Sunday morning. This is what education at a place like Bethlehem is like—it’s a whole-hearted, all-of-life, exhilarating enterprise!
Let me put together both what we are doing and how we are doing it. Our central task of studying how all things cohere in Christ fills us with joy that overflows in love toward one another. There is no greater good than Christ the Good Shepherd; there is no deeper truth than Christ the Word of God; there is no higher beauty than Christ the Prince of Peace. When we see something deeply good, profoundly true, and stunningly beautiful, we cannot help but share it with others. We study, then, in order that we might savor Christ and, in our savoring, we cannot help but share that joy with others. We become what we behold. Imitation leads to transformation. That’s why we exist to spread by teaching within an intentionally tight-knit community.
As you begin your time here as a Bethlehem student remember that your vocation is to study how all things cohere in Christ together. I promise you that such study will overflow in spreading to others, both here and around the world for your joy and God’s glory.
Zach Howard, Ph.D.
Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Theology and Humanities
PRAYER REQUESTS:
- Pray that we all would be transformed as we study the Word and share its beauty with others.
- Pray for our students as they settle into their school year routines.
- Pray for the speakers preparing for Godward Life.
- Pray for the full funding of the Alex Steddom International Student Fund.