The Sword of the Lord is a Christian fundamentalist publisher, based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, that publishes a newspaper of the same name as well as religious books, pamphlets, and tracts.
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The Sword of the Lord was first published on September 28, 1934, in Dallas, Texas by John R. Rice, who edited the publication until his death on December 29, 1980. At first it was simply the paper of Fundamentalist (later, Galilean) Baptist Church of Dallas. The paper was handed out on the street where the church was located, and the Rice daughters and other Sunday school children delivered it door-to-door.[1]
The Sword of the Lord moved with the Rice family to Wheaton, Illinois in 1940, and then to its present location in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1963. For 15 years, John R. Rice co-edited the paper with his brother Bill Rice (1912-1978). When Bill Rice died, Curtis Hutson replaced him as co-editor. Two years later John R. Rice died, and Hutson became the sole editor. Hutson died in 1995, and editorship passed to Shelton Smith, former pastor of the Church of the Open Door/Carroll Christian Schools, Westminster, Maryland.
The name of the ministry and publication is taken from a phrase in Judges 7:20: "And they cried, The Sword of the Lord, and of Gideon." The verse is featured in the banner, as is the newspaper's stated purpose, to be "An Independent Christian Publication, Standing for the Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, the Deity of Christ, His Blood Atonement, Salvation by Faith, New Testament Soul Winning and the Premillennial Return of Christ; Opposing Modernism, Worldliness and Formalism."
As is true in many small businesses, family members of the editors often assumed integral roles in the ministry of The Sword of the Lord. In 2009, the approximately fifty employees of the Sword of the Lord Foundation included editor Shelton Smith; his son, Marlon, executive vice president; and Shelton Smith's son-in-law, Guy King, vice president of publishing.[2]
The Sword of the Lord emphasizes soul winning, the belief that Christians should actively seek to convert others to faith in Jesus Christ. It promotes fulfilling the Great Commission by publishing books and materials on the topic as well as sponsoring annual "School of the Prophets" seminars.
"The Sword of the Lord believes the Bible, the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament, preserved for us in the Masoretic text (Old Testament), the Textus Receptus (New Testament) and the King James Bible, is verbally and plenarily inspired of God. It is the inspired, inerrant, infallible, and altogether authentic, accurate and authoritative Word of God, therefore the supreme and final authority in all things (II Tim. 3:16-17; II Peter 1:21; Rev. 22:18-19)."[3] However, the organization actively opposes more radical King-James-Only views, such as those of Peter Ruckman.
For many years the Sword of the Lord has published sermons of contemporary Baptist preachers who are part of its circle. It also publishes sermons from a wider spectrum of evangelicals of past generations, including Hyman Appelman, Harry A. Ironside, Bob Jones, Sr., R. A. Torrey, Robert G. Lee, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, T. De Witt Talmage, and George Truett. Although the paper is militantly anti-Calvinist, an exception is made for edited sermons of C. H. Spurgeon.[4] The paper also usually includes a column by the editor, a section of "Noteworthy News Notes" with editorial commentary, columns on church planting and bus ministries, and numerous advertisements for Bible colleges and fundamentalist Baptist churches.[5]