Although the President said he intends to end the system that allows Imams to train overseas, some have suggested he may be using “radical Islam” to garner public support for the move which would simultaneously undermine the freedoms and rights of Christian parents.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced on Friday his intention to outlaw homeschooling in 2021 for all children unless they have a medical exemption that forces them to stay away from schools, Life Site News reports.
According to the report, the President said the government would also step up control of self-funded, private and independent schools, through inspections of curricula and by strong enforcement of a new law that requires private schools to teach a “common core” defined by the state.

The announcement comes as part of Macron’s plan to combat “Islamic separatism” and to “free Islam in France from foreign influences.”

“The goal of training and promoting in France a generation of Imams and intellectuals who defend an Islam fully compatible with the values of the Republic is a necessity,” Macron told an audience in Les Mureaux, Paris.
Although the President said he intends to end the system that allows Imams to train overseas, some have suggested he may be using “radical Islam” to garner public support for the move which would simultaneously undermine the freedoms and rights of Christian parents.
According to Macron, his aim is to “protect children from religion,” and that includes Christianity.
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Belz, as much as anyone in his life, exemplified a key aspect of Reformed heritage: the interwoven strands of doctrine, piety, and witness. “It’s tempting for those three strands to become unraveled. Some people seem to be all about doctrine, or all about the spiritual life, or all about cultural engagement,” Niel Nielsen said. “Belz held those together. So for the church, the denomination, and especially the Covenant community, he represented the best of Reformed faith and life and faithfulness.”

Joel Belz, founder of WORLD News Group, died Sunday at his home in Asheville, N.C., from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 82.
Those who knew Belz esteemed him as an exemplary son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, elder, teacher, journalist, and publisher. He saw himself as nothing more than a great sinner who had received great mercy.
“Just as it is for every sinner, mine is a story of what God has done for me—not what I have done for Him,” Belz wrote in 2021 in his WORLD Magazine column.
Belz was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1941, the second of eight children of Max and Jean Belz. His parents prioritized Christian education for their children.
“Daily reading and Bible classes were assumed,” Belz wrote of his childhood. “We took notes on the sermons we heard. And we memorized Scripture—so that all these years later, 20 or more entire Psalms are still stashed away in my increasingly Parkinson’s-wobbly memory.”
Belz’s father was a third-generation grain, lumber, and coal dealer in central Iowa, though he later attended seminary and became a Presbyterian pastor. As a child, Belz joined his dad at annual meetings of the Bible Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. Belz attended Cono Christian School, which his father helped found, and later graduated from Covenant College with a degree in English. He earned a master’s degree in mass communications and journalism from the University of Iowa. In between, he did research and traveled internationally for the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation.
Belz taught logic and English at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga., briefly before helping to found Lookout Mountain Christian School across the border in Tennessee, which still operates today as Chattanooga Christian School. For decades, Belz served as a board member of Covenant College. Niel Nielson spent 10 years at Covenant as president and worked closely with Belz. Nielson said Belz, as much as anyone in his life, exemplified a key aspect of Reformed heritage: the interwoven strands of doctrine, piety, and witness.
“It’s tempting for those three strands to become unraveled. Some people seem to be all about doctrine, or all about the spiritual life, or all about cultural engagement,” Nielsen said. “Belz held those together. So for the church, the denomination, and especially the Covenant community, he represented the best of Reformed faith and life and faithfulness.”
In 1975, Belz married Carol Esther Jackson, and the couple raised five daughters. In 1977, Belz moved his family to Asheville to work for The Presbyterian Journal, a publication for theologically conservative Presbyterians where he later became interim editor.
Belz believed Christian education was a key to the believer’s life. His involvement at Asheville Christian Academy lasted beyond his youngest child’s graduation. Evidence stands two stories tall at the center of the campus, a building that now houses a reception area, cafeteria, and offices. Head of School Bill George says Belz’s foresight saved the day years ago when other decision-makers wanted to drop plans to construct the space. Belz insisted they finish the outer structure but leave the completion of the interior and the fundraising to the next generation. It sat vacant for years, but now George sees the wisdom in Belz’s determination to forge ahead. He describes Belz, who also served as an elder at his church, as a great counselor and older brother type, one who kept his head on straight even as his accomplishments grew. “There wasn’t a saccharine sort of fakeness with Belz,” George said. “He was the same whether he was in front of an audience of a thousand or just sitting across the table having a cup of coffee with you.”
In 1981, Belz, as he continued to work for The Presbyterian Journal, combined his journalistic experience with his background in education to launch It’s God’s World, a newspaper for middle school students. He later added papers for other age groups. After the student publications received a warm welcome from many families and Christian schools, he received requests for an adult version covering news and current events. Belz then oversaw WORLD Magazine’s launch in March 1986.
“For the next five years, the goal was survival,” Belz wrote in a 1997 WORLD column. “Could we publish one more edition? Could we pay one more week’s postage bills? Could we meet salaries one more time? Yet, during a period when 80–90 percent of all periodicals flunk the test of durability, God let WORLD survive.”
But Belz didn’t know, during those first few months, if the magazine would last. With only 5,000 subscribers, The Presbyterian Journals’ board canceled the new publication in June 1986 after only 13 issues.
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Smeaton offers over 70 pages on the universal impact of a particular atonement. Lest anyone accuse Calvinists of restricting the impact of the cross to the elect only, Smeaton shows how a particular redemption touches all creation. As an aside, Smeaton employs the language of Christ’s lordship over “every square foot” years before Abraham Kuyper’s more famous “every square inch” quotation.[3] Not restricting himself to the Gospels, however, Smeaton went on in his second volume to expound every place from Acts to Revelation where the Apostles speak of the cross. Yet, instead of merely giving exegetical notes on each passage, he brings the full weight of his Westminster theology to the text of Scripture.

What do you get when you combine exegetical precision, theological clarity, and dedicated churchmanship? In 2024, Thomas Schreiner or G.K. Beale might come to mind, as these two well-respected New Testament scholars join together biblical acumen with a deep and abiding love for the church. If you asked the same question in nineteenth century Scotland, however, you would get George Smeaton (1814–89). After serving faithfully as a pastor in the Free Church from 1843–54, he went on to assist Patrick Fairbairn in divinity at Aberdeen before assuming his final role, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at New College in Edinburgh from 1857–89.
For those who are unfamiliar with Smeaton, you would do well to acquaint yourself with him. You can find a brief biographical sketch by John W. Keddie in the Sermons and Addresses of George Smeaton. Keddie has also written a larger biography of Smeaton. I would commend both.[1]
Still, my acquaintance with Smeaton is not located in any biography, but in a bookshop. Somewhere near the beginning of my doctoral studies (circa 2010) I took the train to a series of bookstores near the University of Chicago. Walking past one of them, I began to peruse the dollar rack, where I stumbled across a worn out Zondervan edition of George Smeaton’s The Doctrine of the Atonement As Taught By Christ Himself (1953; Edinburgh, 1871), now retitled and republished as Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement. Studying the cross of Christ myself, I immediately picked up the book and proceeded to find its pair on a shelf inside, The Apostles Doctrine of the Atonement (1957; Edinburgh, 1870).
Little did I know what awaited me in Smeaton’s two volumes, or the way these two books would unlock others published in nineteenth-century Scotland.[2] Personally, I am persuaded that Presbyterians and Baptists who lived in nineteenth-century Scotland, those who followed the Marrow Controversy, produced some of the best exegetical theology on cross in church history. Standing at the head of the line is George Smeaton’s work.
Totally 1,050 pages (in my two volumes), Smeaton addresses every passage in the New Testament which touches on the cross of Christ. In his first volume, he argues that Christ had a rich theological understanding of the cross, a debated subject for those who study the historical Jesus. Additionally, in that volume, Smeaton offers over 70 pages on the universal impact of a particular atonement. Lest anyone accuse Calvinists of restricting the impact of the cross to the elect only, Smeaton shows how a particular redemption touches all creation. As an aside, Smeaton employs the language of Christ’s lordship over “every square foot” years before Abraham Kuyper’s more famous “every square inch” quotation.[3]
Not restricting himself to the Gospels, however, Smeaton went on in his second volume to expound every place from Acts to Revelation where the Apostles speak of the cross. Yet, instead of merely giving exegetical notes on each passage, he brings the full weight of his Westminster theology to the text of Scripture. And in the end, he provides a historical sketch of the doctrine of the atonement too. In all, Smeaton’s approach is a near-perfect example of exegetical precision conjoined with confessional theology. And thus, the reader is rewarded with more than a thin list of proof-texts; he is given a rich feast of all the glories of Christ’s cross.
Back in the Summer of 2010, after picking up Smeaton’s two volumes, I would wake up early, make coffee, go outside, and read his chapters on the cross. If there is any one book that shaped my views on the cross or how to engage individual texts in light of biblical theology, Smeaton would be the one. And so, I commend his two volumes to you—you can get both from Banner of Truth or you can find a PDF at Monergism. I also want to encourage you to sample the way he introduces the four Gospels and their relationship to the cross.
As the editors of Christ Over All discussed the formation of this month, we wanted to show how each Gospel provides a different angle to the passion of the Christ. And in what follows, George Smeaton gives us exactly that. In the opening pages of his first volume on the cross, The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by Christ Himself, he explains the way the four Gospels present Christ and his cross, and this month they help us get our bearings as we begin to get into the details in the days to come. Take up and read. I pray you enjoy George Smeaton’s work as much as I have.
(This selection has been reformatted from the Monergism PDF).
******
Section I.—The Four Gospels the Sources of Our Knowledge as to the Sayings of Jesus.
The Gospels, a record of facts, and of memorable sayings intended to explain those facts, are constructed in the way best adapted to set forth the design of the Lord’s death. A brief notice of their constituent elements will suffice for our present purpose.
As no one mind was competent to the task of delineating the divine riches of Christ’s life, we have a fourfold mirror presented to us, in order to reflect it on all sides. The four biographies, with each a distinct peculiarity, constitute a perfect harmony and an adequate revelation of the God-man. This explains why the apostles were, during His public ministry, placed in His immediate society. They were to be fitted, according to their divine call, to prepare, as eyewitnesses and earwitnesses, for the edification of the church, a faithful record of His deeds and words. And intimations of this occasionally occur before they were fully aware of all that was intended (Matt. 26:13; Acts 1:21). The precious record was for nearly thirty years suspended on their oft-imperiled lives. But it came forth in due time, when it could be committed to the Church already prepared to welcome and appreciate it as part of the oracles of God.
Though some men presumptuously talk of the entrance of myths, such a supposition is forestalled by the circumstances of the case. What was at length transferred to writing had been, for near a generation, orally rehearsed by the apostles in the churches which they founded. The Gospels were the productions of immediate eye-witnesses, or of men who wrote in their society and under their sanction. The fact that the apostles still presided over the churches when the Gospels were issued secured a twofold result the authenticity as well as faultless accuracy of the documents, and their unimpeded circulation.
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