How the Bible Urges Us Toward Classical Education | John Tweeddale

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by John Tweeddale, Vice President of Academics and professor of theology at Reformation Bible College. The two discuss how the Old and New Testaments and the Christian tradition point to classical education as the way to raise children. They dive into one of the educational legacies of the Protestant Reformation, and how the Enlightenment changed our cultural view of religion.

Transcript

Soren - CLT (00:01.428)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Schwab, VP of Partnerships here at CLT, and today we're joined by Dr. John Twedale. Dr. Twedale is Vice President of Academics and Professor of Theology at Reformation Bible College. He is also a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, a visiting scholar at Queen's University in Belfast, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

He has served as Senior Associate Editor of Table Talk Magazine, as Senior Pastor of First Reformed Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, and as an Adjunct Professor at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He earned his MDiv from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He is author of John Owen and Hebrews, and co -editor of John Calvin for a New Reformation, and the T &T Clark Handbook,

of John Owen and Dr. Tweedale. It is such an honor to have you on the podcast today.

John Tweeddale (01:03.182)
Thank you, Sora, and it's a joy to be with you.

Soren - CLT (01:05.844)
Absolutely, and for our listeners, maybe have heard Reformation Bible College. There is a podcast episode that I recorded with Dr. Nichols and Bob Ingram, a good friend of CLT's a few months ago, maybe a year ago. So if you all want to listen to that, that was a delightful conversation as well. And of course, listeners are in for a treat today with Dr. Twadale.

As we always do, let's start the Anchored podcast by talking about your own educational upbringing. I'm curious, what kind of schools did you attend, K -12, and how did that influence your career path and your decision to pursue extensive higher education and ministry?

John Tweeddale (01:46.638)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. It's a great question and it's one that allows me to think back on all that God has given to me over the years. I am so grateful that I grew up in a Christian home with wonderful Christian parents. My dad was a civil servant for the Navy. After 30 years, he retired. His last post was as a director of Naval Education and Training.

And so at the end of his career, he himself was actually given to education and to training at the college and postgraduate level. I, though, went mostly to Christian schools, predominantly in middle school, especially. In high school, I did go for a short time to public school and for a very brief stint did some homeschooling. So I had exposure to a little bit of everything.

I have to say though, as a young man and as a student, I did not particularly enjoy my schooling experience. It took me a long time before I really figured out what I wanted to do with my life, what I sensed God was calling me to do. I actually started out in college at a junior college trying to figure out what I wanted. And I was reading through the letters of Paul, came to his words in 1 Corinthians 9, 16.

where he says, Necessities laid upon me, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. And in God's kindness and mercy, I sensed an inward call to gospel ministry, received a scholarship to go to a Southern Baptist liberal arts college in Mississippi, William Carey University. And I studied religion and philosophy at William Carey, then went on to RTS and then went on to Edinburgh.

Soren - CLT (03:35.029)
Mm -hmm.

John Tweeddale (03:43.278)
But along the way, I've always had people that invested in me. So my sense of call to educate stems from my desire to be a minister of the gospel and in many ways to pass on to others what I have also received. So I've had a wonderful education. I've grown up in a great home. I've had great teachers. And out of all of those things, I get to serve at RBC today.

Soren - CLT (04:13.126)
Wow, that is wonderful. And RBC is truly a special place. And we talked a little bit before the recording, and you were telling me that the college is such a healthy place and that enrollment has been booming and just going so well. And first of all, congratulations on that. That's not always the case with smaller Christian liberal arts schools. There's been some that are struggling. And so it's just beautiful to hear that RBC is doing so well.

What makes it a distinct place that you're proud to work? Give me your incoming student, what's the value proposition that you have for RBC that makes it different from other colleges?

John Tweeddale (04:59.918)
Great, no, thank you. Well, an easy answer, I'm looking out my window here and there are palm trees. It's sunshine, it's central Florida, it's Orlando, it's absolutely beautiful. But as beautiful as this campus is, that's really not what ultimately is unique about it. I love our students, I love our faculty, I love our staff, and they come here by conviction. They're attracted to what RBC is and what RBC does.

Soren - CLT (05:04.916)
I'm out.

John Tweeddale (05:28.91)
Now God has been good to us and we are growing as an institution. RBC was founded in 2011, so we have entered our teenage years as an institution. We're part of a non -profit Christian ministry called Ligonier Ministries, which has been around for a little over five decades. So it's a unique model to have a non -profit parachurch organization to start a undergraduate

Bible college that's committed to theological education. And so, yes, while to use your word, one sense we're booming, we're still essentially about a 200 student campus. We are intentionally small because we're really focused on one single thing, and that is theological education for undergraduate students. And so we like to actually say that, you know, our vision,

is simply to be faithful in educating our students in the historic Christian faith as it's summarized in the Reformed Confessions. We want to produce knowledgeable, articulate students who know God and who serve God and who worship God, but we have this unique vision of being a confessional institution that's really dedicated to

training and investing in college kids who really want a theological education. So that's the real unique kind of value proposition is that if you are, you know, 18 to 22 year old and you have a desire to dig deep in a biblical theological foundation and education, there's no better place to be than RBC.

Soren - CLT (07:21.204)
Yeah, and I remember I had a conversation with the VP of enrollment and essentially he said something along the lines of, you know, we want the right kind of families to run towards us, right? And in a way, and he said, don't mean to disrespect it, but in a way we want the wrong families to run away from us, right? We don't want kind of a wishy washy. We have a specific set of students that are probably a good fit for here. And so it sounds like...

from a marketing perspective, so to speak, you've kind of mastered like, hey, here's what we offer, right? Here's who we are, unapologetically who we are. And if that is a good fit, then please do come to us. Is that an accurate description?

John Tweeddale (08:04.174)
Yeah, that's exactly right. So we're not trying to be all things to all people. And if you think about the landscape of higher education, there are several models here in central Florida. We've got the University of Central Florida, one of the largest universities in the United States as tens of thousands of students, and they have every conceivable degree on offer. We offer one degree, and that's a

Bachelor of Arts in Theology. Now, technically you can come here for one year, two years or four years, but we still offer one thing and that's theological education. You also have Christian liberal arts colleges and universities and they do wonderful things, but in some ways they mimic state and research universities and yet they do so in a Christian context. You also have seminaries that are often graduate schools.

that focus on professional training for people going into Christian ministry. And we're none of those. We're not a big box university, state university. We're not a Christian liberal arts college. We're not a vocational training ground for ministers. We really want to do undergraduate education. We care about the liberal arts, but we want to focus on theological education. So we know who we are, we know what we're doing, and we think that will attract certain people.

But if people are interested in receiving a theological education at this level, they probably should go to another institution.

Soren - CLT (09:39.316)
Right, yeah, well put, sir. Let's switch gears a little bit and obviously I don't know your data, your CRM and what it says, but I have a hunch that part of the growth that you're seeing might correlate with the growth of this new movement that our listeners are very familiar with, right? The classical education movement, the classical Christian model of education.

In fact, when I talked to Bob Ingram and Stephen, we talked about the minor in reformed classical education that you and I are offering. It seems like this model of education to some people might be new, right? They think, this is a new way of education. We just heard about it. But we both know that it's very traditional. I assume you're getting quite a few students that have kind of come through.

these classical Christian schools. In your estimation, what does this model of education have to offer that makes it so valuable and unique? And is there a discernible difference for students that have received this education in K -12 and then go on to RTS?

John Tweeddale (10:51.694)
Yeah, right. Thank you. So yes, at RBC, we talk about what we call the reformed classical tradition. So we want to tip our hat to the classical tradition of education. In one sense, goes all the way back to Plato and Aristotle and that great Greco -Roman tradition that begins with the Trivium and branches out to the Quadrivium.

And that's one way to think about it. And we certainly do build off of that tradition as it's filtered through the Protestant Reformation. So we talk about the Christian classical context or the Western Christian church context. There are many ways to think about it. But we can even go back beyond Plato and Aristotle.

And you can go all the way back to the Old Testament and you can think of Moses and his writing of the book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy chapter six, one of the most important passages in Israel. You have the Shema where Israelites are called to acknowledge their belief in the one true God and to love him above everything else. And as soon as they make that confession,

Moses tells the people of God in Israel that they are to teach their children these things when they rise up in the morning, when they're in the marketplace, when they go to bed. They are constantly putting the law of God before their children. And so this model of classical education where you pay attention to the development of the child,

where you enforce things like grammar and logic and rhetoric. It's all done in this wider theological framework. That goes all the way back to Moses and Israel. You see these same themes even in the New Testament. Jesus himself placed a priority on the education of children that his disciples would know they have a vital place in Christ's kingdom.

John Tweeddale (13:09.166)
And so the apostle Paul, when he's writing his letters, talks about the importance of training children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. He even reminds his protege, Timothy, of what he learned from his mother and grandmother. And so building off of these traditions then, Paul is able to say, Timothy, what you learned from me, you have to pass on to others.

And when you read, for example, Paul's last letter, 2 Timothy, to his young protege, he talks about the content of the faith that has been handed down, but he also talks about the example of that faith that Paul has set for Timothy. And so he even tells Timothy, listen Timothy, you have followed my life, you have followed my conduct, you have followed my faith, you have even followed my persecutions.

And as you've seen these things in me, now you go and do likewise. So the classical tradition broadly conceived, whether you're defining it in terms of a Greco -Roman tradition or thinking more broadly about the Judeo -Christian tradition, you have these dual themes of content, of information and the transformation of the individual.

And so the classical tradition has really focused on both of these things. We have to convey information to our students, but in a way that leads to their formation and their development as individuals. And so we're building off of that tradition in the context of our own reformed confessional beliefs.

Soren - CLT (14:50.644)
Hmm, that's very very interesting. I mean the obviously the Protestant Reformation drastically drastically changed the future of the church But of course it caused massive changes in the educational tradition as well Everywhere the Reformation touched attention turned like you said towards education and training up the youth and so if I'm understanding you correctly the religion and education have have always been tied together but when I'm looking at the

educational landscape and let's just say K -12 amongst Christian schools, the classical Christian schools are somewhat set apart because I have seen, I have visited, talked to Christian K -12 schools where religion is kind of its own subject and it's not really infused into everything the school is doing. It sounds like at Reformation Bible College the two are very much connected.

Is that your observation as well? Was there an apparent break? Is that just maybe the result of the last 50 years where maybe education and religion and theological education are more disjointed? Can you speak to that?

John Tweeddale (16:08.526)
Yeah, it's great. So let me try to untangle that just a little bit and think a little bit about education and relationship to the Reformation and then think a little bit about the unraveling of that legacy in the modern world. So one of the forgotten legacies of the Reformation is its emphasis on education. Oftentimes we think of Luther and Calvin as great reformers of the church.

Soren - CLT (16:15.828)
Mm -hmm.

Soren - CLT (16:21.748)
Perfect.

Soren - CLT (16:36.66)
Mm -hmm.

John Tweeddale (16:36.878)
And we rightly understand the importance of the church in the imagination of the reformers. But their vision was far more comprehensive than just the church. So one of the great statements of the Reformation comes from the Scottish reformer, John Knox, who actually spent some time with Calvin and Geneva and saw Calvin's Reformation of Geneva. And so...

Knox took much of the playbook of Geneva and applied it to Scotland. Knox was concerned not only about the church, but also parish education. And so Knox very famously said that the virtuous education of the youth is essential for the advancement of Christ's glory. In other words, for the Reformation to continue,

Soren - CLT (17:32.436)
Hmph.

John Tweeddale (17:36.238)
We have to educate children. We can't neglect them as we go about reforming society. So we can't just even focus on ministers. We actually have to focus on children who will hopefully one day surpass us in what they do for Christ and his kingdom. And so the Reformation was holistic. They attempted to write confessions. They attempted to write books and preach sermons.

but they also attempted to establish institutions of education that not only focused on early child education, but all the way through what we now know as universities and seminaries. So the Reformation was very much concerned about building an infrastructure that focused on the church, that focused on publishing, and focused on education.

So certainly that was one of the great traditions. That's something that we've tried to build on here at Ligonier and at RBC, even on our own campus. You'll find a church that focuses on discipleship. You see a parachurch organization, Ligonier Ministries, that very much focuses on publishing Christian content. And then you've got a college, Reformation Bible College, that focuses on, you know,

training the next generation as it were. Now, one of the sad realities, though, as you move into the modern world after the Reformation is you begin to see a decaying of this infrastructure with the rise of modern ideologies that really begin to challenge Reformation assumptions. And so there's a long arc to this. I think sometimes people.

are looking for causes in the modern world and they're only looking in the past few years. So whether you're talking about somebody like René Descartes, who talked about doubt as the center of knowledge, or whether you move on to somebody like Immanuel Kant, who's thinking about the limits of reason and religion within our natural phenomena.

Soren - CLT (19:38.068)
Thank you.

John Tweeddale (19:55.566)
Or you can talk about somebody like Jacques Rousseau or you can think of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who've tried to romanticize religion and change the way we think about personal feeling. You can go and look at education, church, knowledge, history, feeling, psychology, and see this long displacement of religion. So our founder was R .C. Sproul. He often talked about

Soren - CLT (20:05.684)
Mm -hmm.

John Tweeddale (20:25.006)
One of the legacies of the Enlightenment is the fact that theology is no longer the queen of the sciences, but it's been relegated to schools of, say, anthropology or sociology. So we talk about religion as an anthropological phenomenon, but not as a theology that ties together all learning.

So in our own day, theology is not a norming discipline that informs all other disciplines, but it's the product of human cultural expression that we should study to appreciate, but not look to for any guiding norm in society.

Soren - CLT (21:08.116)
Wow, yes, I now feel even worse about my rambling with that question, but you tied it beautifully together. No, that makes so much sense. It really, really puts it in perspective. So it seems like the Romantic period was certainly maybe not the ultimate cause, but there was the emphasis on feelings, on emotions, on the self. I recently read the Rise and Triumph, the modern self.

and kind of going through that, so fascinating. Well, I wish you could give that, maybe turn it into a talk and give it to all Christian K -12 schools, because what you're saying, it does unfortunately seem to be more the norm now, but then there are these classical Christian schools that are defying the norm and they're obviously on the rise. And so they are, in my estimation, at least students that come from these schools.

John Tweeddale (21:38.062)
Exactly.

Soren - CLT (22:06.484)
are inherently more motivated to want to go on and pursue theology, want to go on and continue to pursue their faith, I think because they understand that these two are inextricably linked, that there is no learning apart from theology, apart from your knowledge of God. But the culture is obviously telling us differently. And so I want to kind of hear your thoughts on... I think it's too simplistic to say that, you know,

modern society's goal is to remove religion from education. But there's certainly a concerted effort to make that happen, right? In some of progressive education. But if you completely remove religion from education, what kind of changes will result from this in the future? Maybe we're already seeing it now. And what do you think caused this general movement away from? And we talked about the Reformation, but maybe you can speak to...

maybe the last 100 years or so, this general movement away from religious education.

John Tweeddale (23:11.406)
Sure. Yeah, one way I know your organization thinks a lot about the good, the true and the beautiful. When these transcendentals are detached from their norm in God, they are inevitably, you know, relativized. So, you know, the good is really defined by say personal whim and personal preference.

Soren - CLT (23:18.1)
Okay.

John Tweeddale (23:39.31)
So there's no norming norm that governs, defines, and animates what is good, what is true, what is beautiful. So these things really become defined by individuals, and there's nothing to set one belief over against the other. And so we've seen the long downgrade of the good, the true, and the beautiful by removing, you know,

God as the highest and ultimate end that we aim at in these transcendentals. So I think one result has just been the downgrade or the relativizing of these principles. One of the places where I would encourage people to go is just go read the book of Judges. If there is ever a book in the Old Testament in particular,

that speaks to our current condition, I think it's the book of Judges. The book of Judges chronicles the sad story of what has been called the Canaanization of Israel. What happens when Israel begins to look more and more like pagan Canaan than actually the people of God who've been redeemed and set apart by the God of Israel?

And so it's a slow, long decline as Israel begins to forget God. Now that idea of forgetfulness is not that the Shema has been expunged from the memory bank of Israel, but that Israel no longer lives in reference to the law she knows. So when things go bad, they cry out to God, and God does relent and bring relief.

But the problem is that in day -to -day life, they no longer live in reference to God. They forget his importance to them. In some ways, we see that today. I think we can have nominal Christianity, but everyday Christians are no longer living in reference to God in their pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. So the danger of modern society, I think, is the relativizing of God.

John Tweeddale (25:59.374)
that really promotes a decadence in society. And so we forget that we need God at every point of our lives. And so if the book of Judges does anything, it should catapult us back into the presence of God as we recognize him as our chief and highest end in life.

Soren - CLT (26:18.036)
Yeah, that's really, really well said. Ultimately, we are religious creatures as humans. And it seems like this vacuum that has been created by removing God, removing religion from our schools has been filled with somewhat call it a modern day religion, a new religion, new atheism. We don't try to get too political, but some call it wokeism. But there's clearly some yearning that students have, right? A yearning to belong, to feel seen.

feel heard something as we as Christians, you know, we understand our belonging in Christ, but these kids do not. And so it seems like this yearning is omnipresent though. And I'm wondering kind of long term cultural impact there if I guess if we're not reclaiming, you know, renewing, but I don't know.

you have any insight in best ways to do that, right? Because we're dealing with a public school where obviously there's secular schools, but does that make sense what I'm saying? There's some kind of a yearning that they have, some emptiness that they try to fill. They're just filling them with things of the culture.

John Tweeddale (27:28.334)
Sure, sure.

John Tweeddale (27:36.95)
So I would say this, if there is a young Christian who might be, you know, 13, 14 year old listening to this, or maybe, you know, this child is listening to it with his or her parent, and they're wondering what to do. One thing I would say is I would urge against a defeatist mentality in a decadent society. So yes, we live in a decadent, godless society, and there's much cause for concern.

Soren - CLT (27:58.356)
Mm -hmm.

John Tweeddale (28:06.926)
And so maybe the thought is, well, let's just withdraw and have a defeatist mentality. Let's just circle the wagons and do our thing and not worry about anything. I actually don't think that's the response. Your calling is not to be defeatist. Your calling is to be faithful. It is to be salt, is to be light, is to pursue the callings God has given you.

If you want to go into STEM field and go into architecture, you do so for the glory of God. If you want to go into economics, pour yourself into your studies for the good of society and the glory of God. We need people in liberal arts. We need people in STEM fields. We need people in the trades. We need people who are educators. We need gospel ministers and missionaries. We need

Christians who are faithful in every sphere in every place of society who will be salt and light. So let's not retreat. Let's not have a defeatist mentality, but let's be faithful. Let's be men and women of conviction. Let's be clear regarding what God's word requires and then let's pour ourselves into our kids. Let's build.

institutions and let's do all for the glory and honor of God. So my encouragement to your listeners today, no matter what they want to do, is to be faithful and especially to those young men and women who are listening here and you might be overwhelmed by what's in front of them. Don't give up. Every single generation has faced unbelief in a pagan society and Christians everywhere are called to be faithful.

And so I think that's where I would want to leave it and where I'd want to urge every single person, no matter your background, no matter your church, no matter your calling or your school, be faithful where God has you.

Soren - CLT (30:11.988)
Amen, brother. And I mean, if I can encourage our listeners to check out Reformation Bible College, because I think if you're looking for a joyful community of Christians pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty, you will find it there. And so, John, this has been so delightful. I can pick your brain for another hour. But I do have one more question that I ask everyone. And I see you on video. I see there are a lot of books behind you. So I'm sure this was not an easy one for you to...

to answer, but is there one book or one text that you can point to that has been deeply impactful, influential in your life and why?

John Tweeddale (30:50.318)
Okay, well, you've mentioned two books that I've worked on about a guy named John Owen, who himself was an educator. Owen was actually for a time vice chancellor at Oxford University. He once told teenagers at Oxford that the glory of God, that theology is the luster of the arts and the sciences.

Soren - CLT (30:51.508)
I'm sorry.

Soren - CLT (30:57.3)
Mm -hmm.

Soren - CLT (31:04.724)
John Tweeddale (31:16.046)
So he would be very proud that we're having this discussion today. So even if you're not called to be a minister like I am or a theologian, you're called to know God. It's the highest end to which you are called. So I would encourage people to go read John Owen. My favorite book that he wrote is sometimes called The Glory of Christ or the full title is Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ. He wrote it during a time of persecution in England.

and he talked about how seeing Christ by faith on earth is preparation for seeing Christ in heaven in glory. And few books have been more encouraging to me, especially during times of trial than that book. And so if you're looking for something to edify you, encourage you, read John Owen on the glory of Christ.

Soren - CLT (32:08.532)
Wonderful. Thank you for that recommendation. Again, we're here with Dr. John Tweedale, who is the vice president of academics and a professor of theology at Reformation Bible College in Orlando, Florida. John, thank you so much for joining us today.

John Tweeddale (32:23.758)
Thanks, Soren, for having me. All the best to you.