The World and Everything in It: October 17, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. I am Melanie Vandenbrink. I live in Rock Valley, Iowa with my husband Joel and our three girls. I teach at a small Christian school, and Joel is an engineering manager. We are alumni of Dordt University, and two of our daughters now attend too. We hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Ten days after Hamas’s attack on Israel, what’s life like for people living there? 

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: We’ll talk to a historian in Jerusalem about Israel’s past and present. Also big tech on small farms. Barriers are high but not insurmountable. Plus, what church libraries can do when public libraries aren’t safe for the whole family.

AUDIO: You’re growing their Christian life. For a child to see the wonders of the world through the library, through the Christian library.

And what the Bible says about the nature of authority.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, October 17th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: House speaker » At the Capitol, House members will try again today to elect a new speaker of the House. The chamber is planning a floor vote after Republicans nominated Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan for the post.

And the recently ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he plans to back Jordan.

MCCARTHY: I feel very good about where Jim Jordan is at. He has been an integral part of our team when we took the majority, helping us get the majority.

GOP members had voted to nominate Majority Leader Steve Scalise, but he dropped out last week when he couldn’t muster the 217 supporters needed to win a vote where it really counts, on the House floor.

FBI terror warning » The FBI is warning of growing terror threats against the United States. Director Christopher Wray said he’s worried about copycat attacks like those Hamas recently carried out in Israel.

Republicans say the growing terror threat puts a new spotlight on the porous southern border. Sen. Ron Johnson:

JOHNSON: 1.7 million known ‘got-aways.’ We don’t know who these people are. We just know that they got through the border without even being encountered or processed. You think there may be a terrorist or two in there?

Data from the U.S. southern border leaked earlier this month revealed that border agents have arrested more than 150 people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list since 2021.

Brussels attack » Meantime, in Belgium, authorities raised the terror alert in Brussels after a deadly attack near a soccer match. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: A gunman fatally shot two Swedes in Brussels last night near a stadium packed with 35,000 fans.

The shooting forced authorities to halt the Sweden-Belgium soccer match.

They also raised the terror alert in the city to level 4, its highest rating, which means “the threat is extremely serious.”

Authorities said “The population needs to be actively vigilant and avoid any unnecessary travel.”

The government also raised the terror alert for the rest of the country toits second-highest level.

It was not immediately clear why investigators believed the shooting may have been an act of terrorism or if it was linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Israel/Biden » President Biden has postponed a planned campaign trip to Colorado.

He said right now, his focus is on the war between Israel and Hamas.

BIDEN: I think they have to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about what’s happened. Deeply. We have to communicate to the world. This is critical.

Biden is weighing a decision to visit Israel in what would be a striking show of wartime support.

On Monday, the president met with intelligence chiefs and other leaders at the White House as Israeli troops and tanks prepared to roll into Gaza.

Israel » Israel’s military has warned residents to get out of harm's way ahead of a ground invasion.

Israel Defense Force spokesman Jonathan Conricus:

CONRICUS: We are gearing up indeed for significant combat operations. We will be focusing on the northern Gaza Strip. I can say that which usually a military doesn't advertise its intentions ahead of time. I can say it because we've asked the civilians to evacuate.

Some are worried that war could break out on a second front … in Israel's north. Hezbollah controls territory in southern Lebanon along Israel’s northern border.

Iran backs both Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Pentagon has dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Eastern Mediterranean to try and prevent the war from widening.

Ukraine » And the Biden administration says it certainly hasn’t forgotten about Ukraine. US diplomat Penny Pritzker:

PRITZKER: I have talked to many people on the Hill, there’s widespread support among the American people, and there’s unwavering support by President Biden for Ukraine.

And a Russian assault in eastern Ukraine appears to be running out of steam … now more than 600 days into Russia’s invasion.

Since Sunday, Ukrainian forces have repelled 15 Russian attacks from four directions just outside of Dontesk.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Getting the facts right on the ground in Israel. Plus, Checking out church libraries.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 17th of October, 2023. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. Up first, Israel’s ground war with Hamas. Israel’s response to the brutal attack by Hamas is underway. The goal? Annihilate the terrorist group’s presence in the Gaza Strip.

REICHARD: It will likely take months to sort out how Hamas was able to launch such a devastating attack without warning, and how Israel’s response will resolve or deepen the conflict. But in the meantime, what’s it like in Israel right now?

BUTLER: Joining us to talk about what’s happening on the ground is Daniel Gordis. He is a Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem and author of thirteen books, many of them about the history of Israel.

REICHARD: Daniel, good morning to you.

GORDIS: Good morning, Thank you for having me.

REICHARD: So glad you're here. Well, you are there in Israel, witness to what's going on in the country that's about the size of New Jersey. Do you have firsthand experience of the conflict as far as air raid sirens, rocket impact and so on?

GORDIS: Oh, absolutely. When the war started last Saturday morning, we were in synagogue and services. And it's it was actually not only the Sabbath, but it was a Jewish holiday called Simchat Torah, which is a very joyous day of dancing with the Torahs and so forth. And we're out there doing our thing. And all of a sudden, out of the blue, the siren went off, we all had 100 and something of us had to go in the shelter. We were really kind of surprised because nobody was expecting anything right now. And then we came after about a half an hour the shelf, the siren went off again, we went into the shelter in this time we finished the service in the shelter. So that was that. And then we had a few more sirens on Saturday afternoon. And we had one about, I don't know, three hours ago here in Jerusalem, which it's now evening time in Jerusalem, and is about three hours since we had to go into the shelter.

REICHARD: The last major ground conflict with Hamas for Israel was back in 2014. How is this ground offensive likely to be different?

GORDIS: There has been an entire change in approach among Israel's leadership as to how to deal with Hamas. Until a week ago, Saturday, the assumption was, it's a terrorist organization, but we're an army. And we have a huge advantage here, they will be very annoying and occasionally lethal from the Gaza Strip. And then we will pound them and we'll buy ourselves X or Y numbers of years of quiet. But the premise was, we're gonna let Hamas continue to exist, because we can work with them, because they're rational, because we can provide all sorts of things in return for quiet and so forth, that conception, completely died last Saturday, because it became clear to us we had no idea what Hamas was doing. And it was not possible to control Hamas. So now the agenda is to destroy Hamas. Israel has President Biden's blessing to destroy Hamas in those exact words. So this is going to be a much much, much more intensive ground invasion.

REICHARD: Let's talk about Prime Minister Netanyahu now. How has his leadership been seen both before and now after the attack of October 7?

GORDIS: Before they had the attack of October 7, obviously, the main issue was the very, very, very highly combustible issue of judicial reform. The polls yesterday and today in Israel are showing an unbelievably precipitous drop, there is almost wall to wall condemnation of how Netanyahu has handled this. He took nine days to get to the front, nine days to get to families who had people in the hospital or family even worse, who have people who have been kidnapped. In Israel, the tradition is you get up you go to the hospitals. You get up, you go to the front, and Menachem Begin, who was a relatively old man when he was Prime Minister when the war with Lebanon started, hopped in a helicopter, went to the front, was there with the soldiers, just part of how it's done here. Now why did that Netanyahu not do it? Because for 10 months, he's been hiding from the Israeli public. Because everywhere he went there were protesters everywhere he went, he was booed. So we're in a period in which the Israeli homefront is showing unbelievable resilience, and helping people in ways that would just shock anybody outside Israel. But the public's assessment of the government, military, and all of that, is that perhaps an all-time low.

REICHARD: Here in the West, public support is mixed. We have demonstrations in support of Israel and in support of the Palestinians filling the news. For example, Black Lives Matter Grassroots issued a statement of support for Palestinians they say have been, quoting here, “subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence,” and therefore justifying violence as (quote) “a desperate act of self-defense.” Daniel, how do you see this?

GORDIS: Well, those kinds of claims, it seems to me are morally objectionable in the worst possible way. Even if one wanted to argue that this was about freeing Palestine, which it is not, but even if you wanted to argue that, that justifies raping mothers in front of their daughters, slaughtering entire families, capturing Holocaust survivors and taking them into the Gaza Strip tunnels, that's what liberation looks like? No liberation never looks like that. African American liberation in the United States didn't look like that. That is genocide, or at least sort of rampant mass murder. It's got nothing to do with liberation. If anybody holds on to an ideology or a worldview that makes that legitimate, is to my mind, morally abject and sinful.

REICHARD: Something I’m seeing in my social media feed are explainers that Palestine was never a state. It’s like Staten Island is to New York. An area, but not a formal state. True or not?

GORDIS: No, that is definitely true. In other words, Palestine first belonged to the the Ottomans. It was the Turkish Empire. Then it was captured by the British and the French, the Middle East was captured by the British and the French in the First World War. And the British and the French kind of divided it up rather haphazardly. So Syria was French, Palestine was British, they drew lines here and there. And then of course, after 1947-48, a part of it went to Israel, part of it went to Jordan, part of it went to Egypt, part of it went to Syria. Then in 1967, Israel captured parts from Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and what we call now Palestine belong the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza Strip to Egypt. But Egypt made peace with Israel, not wanting the Gaza strip back. And Jordan made peace with Israel not wanting the West Bank back. So Israel is basically some Israelis want it some Israelis feel saddled by it. But it was never an entity. People who talk about the history here actually have often very little idea of what happened here. But Palestine, as you say, was completely correctly. Palestine was never a state. It was never a country. It was always a conglomeration of things. And it still is.

REICHARD: Is there anything else the Western media is missing about the conflict?

GORDIS: Well, I think what everybody needs to understand is that Israelis, by and large, do not see themselves at all at war with the Palestinian people. Israelis see themselves as being at war with Hamas. If Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority said "We actually accept your being here, we accept you being part of the Middle East, and we want to make a deal," the overwhelming majority of Israelis, at least until Saturday morning, would have said yes. And that's the part that doesn't get told. We would like to be done with this. And perhaps something about the outcome of this war will be better for the Palestinians too.

REICHARD: Daniel Gordis is an Israeli historian and distinguished fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He’s also the author of the recent book, Impossible Takes Longer: 75 Years After Its Creation, Has Israel Fulfilled Its Founders' Dreams?

Daniel, Thanks for joining us today!

GORDIS: An honor and a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Computers in cornfields.

Big tech has much to offer big agriculture, from autonomous machinery to AI-enabled equipment. But many small farm operations are waiting to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: A survey earlier this year shows less than a quarter of farmers have adopted the latest tech. The consulting firm McKinsey and Company found even fewer farmers plan to do so in the next two years.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy brings us the story, with reporting help from WORLD Watch video editor Benjamin Owen.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Afton Darnell and her brother run a 60-acre specialty farm in North Carolina, growing mostly tomatoes and strawberries among other things.

SOUND: [FARM]

AFTON DARNELL: We’re the most often forgotten side of agriculture, we're still so archaic.

When it comes to agricultural tech, they’re a little skeptical.

She says a lot of new technology is made for big ag—meaning corn, soybeans, and wheat. Those crops are typically farmed on large, flat fields and most technology is created for that ideal set of conditions… but that isn’t always the case for smaller farms.

DARNELL: I was always super amazed by the computers that could drive the tractors from satellites because we're like live in the mountains and we have such rolling hills. We're not flat like that. So that's just so hard to fathom in our minds like the topography here is so much different You know, we the typography here would never work.

She remembers seeing an automatic strawberry picker in a magazine for the first time.

DARNELL: My dad's always taught us to, like, you've create a bond with your crew, and everybody works together. And it's hard work. So I was like, gosh, what would it be like to not have to worry about that?

But she says it’s a catch-22. Tech may cut her labor costs, but it also would replace many who rely on her for their livelihoods.

MARK LICHT: I think there are differences in, in farmers.

That’s Mark Licht, he’s with Iowa State University and studies corn and soybeans to help farmers with everything from planting decisions to yield estimations.

LICHT: Not everyone develops the newest iPhone, or the newest iPad, or whatever, at the same pace and farmers are no different.

Licht says there are several reasons for a slower uptake. The first, and likely biggest of which is cost.

LICHT: Being on the front end of adoption typically means that you're paying a larger or higher price, right?

That means bigger farms can be on the leading edge, spreading the cost out over thousands of acres, while smaller farms either have to make a relatively large investment or do without.

Licht says many of those investments are not in large equipment, rather they’re in ways to gather data.

LICHT: In the production process, we're collecting a lot of data, a tremendous amount of data more now than we've ever collected before.

What kind of data? The kind that tells farmers which seed to buy or how much fertilizer they need in a certain area.

Chad Bever farms 800 acres of corn and beans in Indiana. That’s more than 12 times bigger than the Darnells—but he’s still considered a small farmer in the big ag world. He has to pick and choose what he invests in. So, he doesn’t have a self-driving tractor, but he does have harvest mapping technology.

CHAD BEVER: I think that's where a smaller farmer can benefit. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, he knows what came off of that field and he knows what has to go back on that field.

But as helpful as it is, that’s half the data he could be getting.

His neighbors have the equipment and software to potentially make planting season more efficient too. But Bever wants to put their two planters side by side and see if it actually helps.

BEVER: You know all the technology of downforce and, and seed placement Uh, and all that stuff in a corn planter in the spring of the year. I mean, you really don't know if that's helping you or hurtingv you, or not.

While the Bevers are choosing to invest in data… others are investing in equipment… even if it’s unconventional.

SOUND: [Tractor]

Brothers Torray and Jaron Wilson operate a 600-acre farm in northwest Iowa where they grew up.

JARON WILSON: This is a Windows tablet that runs our auto steer program called Ag Open GPS. The green is what we’ve planted and since we’re doing weed control we’re just going to follow those same lines.

Ag Open GPS is one of a few open-source systems that farmers have created and shared. The brothers built and installed that self-driving tractor system themselves, connecting the tablet with its GPS program to the tractor’s steering wheel with a surprisingly simple mechanical solution.

JARON WILSON: So we just took a router and a chunk of wood and made a circular disc out of wood, tied it to the handles.

It’s complicated to do it themselves, but the brothers like knowing their systems inside and out and being able to fix it.

Some newer equipment can’t be fixed without codes from the manufacturer, and dealer repairs are often too expensive.

So open-source tech can help some small farms stay up and running and even help others grow.

Agriculture researcher Mark Licht says just because big ag has more resources doesn’t mean smaller farms will be wiped out. People will carry on their family farms, continuing a lifestyle they were taught.

LICHT: Some of them will grow over time, if you know, a son comes into the operation and wants to grow the operation. So some of them can grow in and then others, they just stay that size.

Chad Bever says that while the latest technology might be helpful… being lower tech isn’t going to stop him from carrying on the family farm.

BEVER: Farming gets in your blood, and it's, you know, it's something that you love, and it's hard to give up.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Last week, a flight from Guadalajara to Mexico City was delayed for more than two hours, because an infestation of mosquitoes was on board!

Passengers recorded the scene on the Volaris airline flight: People swatting, flight attendants spraying, creating a thick fog throughout the cabin.

AUDIO: Spraying, then clapping and cheering, then “Oh, my eyes!” Then whistling.

Oh, my eyes and lungs! Anyway, the pesky annoyances dissipated at last, after flight attendants just turned off the lights.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 17th. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’re along with us today.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A battle of books! Communities around the nation are facing off against public library systems. At issue: inappropriate books and behavior in children’s sections, and the lack of response to parental concerns.

REICHARD: But not every debate is being hashed out in a town hall or school board meeting. WORLD’s Myrna Brown has the story of a mom in Florida who’s discovered a way to pass on her love for books without ever stepping inside a public library.

SOUND: [Aluminum foil folding]

MYRNA BROWN, REPORTER: Standing in front of a hot stove with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Maureen Rugullies wraps a batch of homemade goodies in foil.

MAUREEN RUGUILLES: Every year I try to make pumpkin muffins for the library.

Rugullies is a homeschooling mother of five. She’s been making muffins and weekly trips to the library since 2002, when her oldest three were babies. That’s when she says she first realized the public libraries she visited as a girl were very different from the public libraries her children were experiencing.

RUGULLIES: And I remember reading a story to Caleb in which the father was lying about the child’s age to get them into the fair. So the morals were questionable. And it’s so much worse today. It is so much worse today.

NEWS REPORT: Commissioners talked at length about what kinds of books should be allowed on shelves saying they have concerns about what they called woke content.

NEWS REPORT: What’s wrong in your opinion with drag shows for kids at libraries?

NEWS REPORT: Tense moments and heated exchanges at Dearborn school board meeting Thursday night as parents, residents and community stakeholders sounded off on LGBTQ books in the district’s library system.

Though deeply troubled by the growing changes in the public library system, Rugullies still yearned to share her love of books with her children.

RUGUILLES: I mean I read a book a day. I just loved books. But I could not afford to buy that many.

So she reached out to a friend who was a member of a large church with two campuses, three services…and its own library.

RUGUILLES: I went and I said look, I can’t come to this church because my husband is ministering in another church, but boy I would really love access to this beautiful library.

Through a system of referrals, the library director invited Rugullies and her kids to become patrons of Olive Baptist Church Library.

RUGUILLES: Oh, I have startling, clear memories of my first time at Olive Baptist Church. Because it is one of my most precious memories, being a book lover. I was overwhelmed. When I walked in, it was like a dream come true. Things that were older Christian literature, plus the newest things that had just been released. I was just so excited.

That was two decades ago. Since then, Maureen’s youngest two, Elsie and Autumn, have also become book lovers. Today, they’re making their weekly library run.

AUDIO: We’re ready to go? I have actually two Cats in the Hat and I have one Tiger book and it’s about Noah and the Lion’s Den. I think his name was Daniel, baby.

SOUND: [CRANKS CAR AND DRIVES OFF]

The campus of Olive Baptist Church sits on the corner of a busy intersection. At the door, 4-year-old Autumn struggles with her white plastic bag, filled with the books she’s returning.

AUDIO AT CHURCH LIBRARY: Ok, come on. It’s not that heavy… I’m not strong enough.

Once inside, Maureen hands over her special delivery of muffins.

RUGUILLES: Those pumpkin muffins are for you.

The library, now called the Resource Center, is about 3000 square feet of wall to wall books. The lighting is fluorescent and the floor is covered with gray carpet. Little wooden chairs surround a square puzzle table. World globes sit atop bookcases and a huge cross covers most of the wall behind the circulation desk. That’s where Hoyt sits.

AUDIO: You’re checking these in, correct?

Hoyt says the Resource Center looks like a typical library and with 20-thousand books on the shelves, it certainly smells like one. But Hoyt says there is one big difference.

JOAN HOYT: We are not a quiet library. And that’s by design. Well we don’t have the space to be quiet. If we did, the children would be behind glass.

AUDIO: Stella come on, pick up the blocks.

Instead, kids like Autumn play freely with blocks at the puzzle table.

AUDIO: Have you read this one? That was Seth’s favorite.

Teens like Elsie chit-chat between the aisles about the latest offerings.

AUDIO: And that’s how Joy and the geranium lady started turning frowns upside down.

And moms and grannies sit criss cross applesauce reading aloud to their toddlers. Hoyt has been a member of Olive Baptist Church since 1979.

JOAN HOYT: This is a calling. I feel as called to be here as the Pastor does in the pulpit. You’re growing their Christian life. For a child to see the wonders of the world through the library, through the Christian library.

She says the library was established at least 30 years prior to her arrival.

HOYT: I want to say it started in the fifties, Pastor’s secretary at the time started it in the closet.

As the library expanded, Hoyt began serving as a volunteer. Then in 1998 the library’s director resigned.

HOYT: And he said, "Joan why don’t you do it?" And I said, pastor, I’m not qualified. Because I did not have a library degree and I did not have a college degree.

But what she did have was faith.

HOYT: God promised me that if I would take it, he would provide for me. And He has provided for me.

As director, Hoyt has two assistants, all paid positions. It’s what she calls an uncommon commitment from a church.

JOAN HOYT: If a pastor doesn’t support, it’s not going to be. Even though it’s a large church, we have generous people, it takes a lot when you are sending people on missions to bring Christ to them. So for them to realize this is a value to the people here and the people in the community, then, to me, that just blesses my soul.

It’s a blessing she says she never takes for granted.

HOYT: Some churches don’t even have a $500 budget. When we go to library conferences, we see how blessed we are here.

Tomorrow, part two of this story: a trip to a library conference, and why some people say church libraries are vanishing.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Pensacola, Florida.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 17th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: a Biblical view of human authority. WORLD Founder Joel Belz wrote the following classic commentary back in the 1980s. But the topic is just as relevant today.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: There's a remarkable little note at the end of Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount. He says that as Jesus finished speaking, the people were amazed. The reason for their amazement, Matthew notes, was that Jesus spoke with authority, not like the religious teachers the people were used to.

The authority of the scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus's day was an onerous oppressive authority. It was heavy and ultimately repulsive. So the people were responsive when they ran into someone who taught with real God anointed authority. It's because human beings aren't very good at exercising authority that we need to touch base, often with the one human being who did it as only God knows how.

How do we humans fail in exercising authority? Sometimes we fail by ignoring authority. This is the classic error of extreme liberalism, acting as if there were no absolutes, pretending that we can make up the rules of the game as we go along. Toleration gives way to lawlessness, and openness paves the way to anarchy. Sometimes, we fail by worshiping authority. That, in contrast, may be the tendency of extreme conservatism. There the temptation is to suppose that every problem in life can be resolved by looking up a solution in the appropriate reference manual.

We also fail when we arbitrarily establish our own authority in place of someone else's. We may do this because we don't like the authority that's already in place, or because we don't like the apparent lack of authority in a given situation. But either way, it's undue abuse.

Christians instead should be in the habit of consistently pointing toward the only true authority in life, that which derives from God Himself. That is exactly what Jesus did, to the amazement of the people who listened to him during his ministry on earth. Godly authority in a real sense is appealing because it combines the best of both worlds. It is properly confining, and totally liberating. As Jesus said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” No heavy handedness there.

God's habit is to lay it to us, but with the tenderness of a mother with her child. The standards of his law are immeasurably high. But the purpose of that law is less to make us wince, than to make us delight in the goodness of the God who gave it.

What a model for all who bear authority for parents, for schools, for churches, for businesses, for communities, and for nations. To all of them, God says, here are the guidelines I expect you to follow. And to all of them at the same time. He says, enforce these guidelines with the same tenderness I have shown toward you know, freedom from guidelines, no harshness of spirit. That's why the people who heard Jesus were so amazed.

BUTLER: That was Joel Belz reading his commentary titled “The Nature of Authority” from his book, Consider These Things.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: The tug of war to elect a new Speaker of the House on Washington Wednesday. And, why some say church libraries are on the decline. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. 

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Lord says: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.” —Isaiah chapter 56, verses 1 and 2.

Go now in grace and peace.

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