Our Hope in Christ: A Chapter Analysis Study of 1 Thessalonians [Hardcover]

This book is an essential, and not only for Christians or homeschoolers, but anyone about to enter college. Seeing as how I'm a high school senior now, I found this book excellent prep for what I know I'm getting ready to go through.

In a short 140 pages, J. Budziszewski provides in-depth analysis and information for what to expect in college, and how to deal with it. He discusses how to hang tight to what you know is right, even when close friends, roommates, and peer groups don't. He offers insight on how to cope with non-Christian friends, and counteracts common campus myths, most of them the kind a Christian freshman might not know how to deal with.

He shoots down myths and smokescreens that often render Christians a little lost as to how to respond, even when they know there IS an answer) and brilliantly refutes such myths as moral relativism, atheism, etc.

He offers advice on how to deal with relationships, both friendship and the Deeper Kind, in a chapter that most students will flip right to: Myths about Love and Sex. He offers refreshing encouragement that you CAN stick to your morals and remain chaste in college, and that it's not only obeying God, but rewarding in its own right!

Budziszewsky also hits (briefly) on political issues, something that few can avoid in today's campus life.

Finally, he sums it all up by discussing WHY all this is important, and highlights the fact that you should fit college into God's plan, not God into college plans. He leaves us with a reminder that we are given a purpose in life, a unique meaning of serving the Lord, and how everything around us factors into Eternity, whether we realize it or no.

In case you haven't figured out already, I think this book is brilliant, masterful, and a comprehensive must-have for any up-and-coming collegian. Parents, your sons and daughters are missing out if you don't get this for them. Students, if you can spare the money, this book is guaranteed to give new meaning and purpose into your collegian existence.

Budziszewski tells these teenagers to trust him because he occasionally refers to the Bible. He already assumes they trust the Bible, but why do they? Because older people told them to, or because they explored it and assessed its veracity for themselves?

This book disturbs me because it does what it claims the "outside" world will do if they're not careful -- feeds young impressionable minds with what to believe. Being a christian is not like holding to an exercise routine. If one has to avoid certain people and situations and memorize canned answers in order to "keep the faith" as Budziszewski recommends, then he actually implies that the faith recommends itself so little that young people will never be able to stick to it for its own merits and truths.

This book would make a good Bible study or Sunday School lesson book for High School students as well. The chapters are short and thought provoking. The book not only challenges a person's thinking, but equips them to defend aspects of the Christian faith to relativists, naturalists, and post-moderns.

The book has online resources available for further reading.

I also recommend this book to any Christian teacher of high school or college students, and to any youth or college leaders at church. It will encourage many Christian students to stand strong on campus when their beliefs are being challenged by the professors or by friends in the dorm.