History
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 four-page paper of Fundamentalist (later, Galilean) Baptist Church of Dallas, where Rice was the pastor. The paper was handed out on the street, and Rice's daughters and other Sunday school children delivered it door-to-door.
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.
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