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What would happen if Jesus walked into a government office and tried to get a business license? I think it might go something like this:

Government official: What is your business? 

Jesus: I’m here to save the world.

Official: Right. Really, what kind of business?

Jesus: People.

(The official finds a regulation book on human resources.) OK, specifically what people?

Jesus: Anyone and everyone.

(The official is already bored and irritated.) Even the homeless, illegals and those who can’t keep a job? You don’t want those working for you. 

“The Lord of Hosts!” It’s a strong name. And it needs to be, coming as it does out of times of tribal conflict, war, atrocities, and even genocide.

The Lord of Hosts is a popular and even dominant name for God throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, appearing a total of 284 times. The word “Hosts” is a military term designating a very large fighting force or army. “Heavenly hosts” then, refers to God’s army of warrior angels.

In 1820, a Missouri newspaper, The Richmond Enquirer, published a remarkable editorial defending the owning of slaves. What seems remarkable today, however, is not that a southern newspaper in 1820 was defending slavery. Such opinions were, unfortunately, part of the political climate of the time, enmeshed as they were in debates about state’s rights and all the other disagreements that led to the Civil War. What seems remarkable today is that the argument presented in the editorial was through and through a biblical argument!

“The Most High… is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

A woman from another church called me once to complain about her pastor. Normally I would not give much attention to what seemed like idle complaining and criticism. But in this case, the woman was not asking me to intervene on her behalf. She had already resolved the situation herself with some outside help. She was simply telling me a story about her past, probably hoping I would learn something.

What caught my attention was that this woman apparently had found her church not only incapable of dealing with domestic abuse but likely to make it worse. To be fair, pastors, somewhat like policemen, always have a hard time dealing with domestic calls. Especially if conflict has escalated to the point of physical and psychological battering, the situation often becomes dangerous to anyone trying to intervene. And the worst part is, it’s often hard to be objective. Domestic abuse is by definition, not public. And both victims and abusers will often minimize things and keep the worst of it a secret, even from those trying to help. Furthermore, victims usually feel a great deal of shame and vulnerability to “moral” judgments by outsiders. They are often afraid of reporting out of fear of judgment and retaliation.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

French intellectuals in the late 19th century loved the United States for its form of government. In the years following the American Civil War, a French artist by the name of Frédéric Bartholdi, wanted to honor the ideals of freedom, which he found expressed in the American Constitution. Eventually, Bartholdi’s ideas took the form of a statue 151 feet high. With the pedestal it would be twice that height, over 300 feet if measured from the surface of the water. A French civil engineer by the name of Gustave Eiffel, later famous for the Eiffel Tower, made the artists design work as both a sculpture and as a large public monument that could withstand the effects of time, weather, and daily visitors.