When to comes to addressing the pressing issues of the day, Christians are often accused of having nothing to offer, being “so heavenly-minded that we are no earthly good.” At the same time, we are routinely blamed for causing problems. This is especially puzzling when it comes to ecological destruction.

In this obscure story from the book of Numbers, a tattletale comes running up to Moses, complaining that two were doing something they weren't supposed to: they were prophesying, without permission. Moses’ response: Would that all God’s people were prophets! Moses's wish comes true, in a fashion, in our second lesson from the Acts of the Apostles - the day of Pentecost.

Alexander Louis Leloir (1843-84), Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1865 Genesis 32 22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, an