Every Generation Asks “Why?”

I was a mature Christian, I understood basic doctrines, … but what I didn’t know was how to articulate and explain and defend people’s questions about Christianity.

Patty is a Bible teacher and former public school teacher who, in the 1990s, didn’t know how to answer the questions she was getting from converted New Agers in her Bible study. She has since earned a master’s in apologetics from SES and co-authored an apologetics book. She’s become “fearless” in engaging people with the Gospel.

“When you give answers to people that they can understand and accept, it builds their faith,” she said.

At one point in Patty’s teaching career, she taught apologetics to high school students who asked about all kinds of things, from abortion to ouija boards. The students had questions, their friends had questions, other teachers sometimes put down their faith and parents didn’t know how to answer their children. The students were unequipped to face the faith challenges inevitable on a college campus, Patty said.

Because of her time at SES, though, she was able to give reasoned responses to their burning questions. She’s still in touch with some of those students—now in their 20s and 30s—who say that education was foundational for their faith.

It’s not just the younger generation struggling with the “why” aspect of faith, either. Patty has had plenty of adults in her Bible studies who wouldn’t attend church and knew next to nothing about God. They too deserved reasonable answers.

Some of these opportunities came through her work in the business world where she could interact with colleagues who were openly seeking the comfort and peace that only God can provide, as well as with others who were openly skeptical of all things religious. In all of these situations, there is the opportunity to tell people about the love of God and answer their questions.

“We certainly need to focus on apologetics in seeking to win non-Christians to saving faith in the Gospel. However, in the day and time in which we live the need is perhaps as great to provide apologetics answers for Christians because they are in desperate need to have confirmation that their faith is a reasonable faith. Sometimes a few sound answers are all it takes.”

Questioning is often the very thing that can be the springboard into an ever deeper faith.

You can help.

SES’s commitment to evangelism that uses apologetics is what attracts students like Patty to study here. There are hundreds of others who would benefit from an education at SES. Will you consider a gift to help SES impact more people like her? Any gift of any amount helps us attract and equip people like Patty to follow God’s call on their lives.

On behalf of the students we serve and the many souls whose lives will be eternally changed, thank you!