3 Books every Teenager should read going into College

I think it was Mark Twain who said, "When I was 14 I thought my dad was the dumbest man around. When I turned 21 I realized how much he had learned in 7 years."

Well, What I wish I had known entering college! Here are 3 books that I think every Christian teenager should read upon entering any university:

1. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. This is one of my personal favorites. It lays out very simply and yet profoundly the intellectual defense behind a Christian worldview. Lewis is a master at taking complex philosophical concepts and using everyday analogies to illustrate the coherence of the Christian view versus the absurdity of an atheistic worldview. My advice- read this book many times!

2. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg. I listened to an interview with Blomberg and he said how dissapointed he was when one of his professors grinned with a sly grin and said how one had to "sacrifice their intellect" in order to accept the 4 Christian gospels. Blomberg's book is the perfect tool for any Christian teenager who walks into an introductory religion class, is greeted by a professor with anti-Christian bias, and is promptly told how we can't trust the four gospels because they contain differing details. (Hello! They are four different eye-witnesses writing to different audiences!) Blomberg's section on the gospels and current scholarship is a bit advanced, but the book is worth having simply to use as a reference when reading the new testament and encountering supposed "contradictions" in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

3. How To stay Christian in College by Jay Budziszewski. This book has a lot of practical advice for teenagers entering the university. Jay tells students who find themselves in front of a professor claiming "We now know that... (followed by some anti-Christian rant)" to stop and ask two questions: 1. Who is "we"? and 2. How do we know that we know? This book has a great chapter on finding Christian fellowship and how to deal with antagonistic professors. It also has a great chapter on staying sexually pure and not giving into to the hedonistic culture of young adulthood.

There's my list, I hope it benefits you or someone you know.