Latest / The Gospel Briefing / Mail Ballots at the Supreme Court, Again
Transcript
- Ballots are already in the mail. That's the backdrop for a fight now before the Supreme Court for the third time. This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Here's what we know. The Trump administration filed again Sunday, asking the high court to allow new Postal Service restrictions on mail ballots before the November midterms. That came after U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani extended an order blocking the president's executive order. Solicitor General John Sauer told the court North Carolina has already begun mailing ballots. Alabama starts September ninth. At least five more states begin the week of September thirteenth. His argument: once envelopes enter the mail stream, there is no retrieving them. The ACLU calls the rule unconstitutional. Sophia Lin Lakin says with fewer than sixty days until the election, there is no evidence states can comply without disenfranchising voters. Roughly one-third of American voters cast a mail ballot. Here's the tension. The Supreme Court has let the plan move forward but has not ruled whether it is actually legal. That is a strange middle place. It is also where your neighbors will be voting from. Scripture doesn't pick a side in a postal rule. It does speak to how God's people carry themselves when systems feel unsettled. Paul writes in First Thessalonians four, verse eleven: aspire to live quietly, mind your own affairs, work with your hands. That is not disengagement. That is steadiness that refuses to be jerked around by every filing. If you want to sit with that passage, keep First Thessalonians four open in Bible Copilot as we go. Story two. Saturday, at the Canfield Fair in Ohio, an armed man forced his way through a crowd toward Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. Troopers stopped him. According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, he was carrying a taser and two pistols. Fairgoers were knocked over. Acton was unharmed. The suspect, thirty-eight-year-old Patrick Havas, faces two counts of assault and one count of disorderly conduct. Governor Mike DeWine condemned the incident. Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy did too. That's the second political-violence scare in Ohio in weeks. Proverbs fifteen, verse one: a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Every believer owns a share of the temperature of this country. Pray for wisdom today before you repeat what you have heard. Story three. Gas hit a record Labor Day high. AAA puts the national average at four dollars and fourteen cents a gallon. Diesel set its own record Friday at five dollars and eighty-five cents. Analysts point to the Iran war, the closed Strait of Hormuz, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and U.S. refineries running at ninety-eight percent capacity in brutal Texas heat. So when the receipt stings this week, remember it is tied to a shooting war halfway around the world. Job twelve, verse ten: in God's hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. The supply chain is not in your hands. The God over it is. This episode is presented by Bible Copilot. Open the app and study the Verse of the Day — First Thessalonians four. Bible Copilot walks you through what the passage says, what it means, what it teaches about God, and how to apply it this week. Three questions each day are free. Start at mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel. That's mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel, or search Bible Copilot in the App Store. Your verse of the day is First Thessalonians four, verses eleven and twelve. "Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one." Elections in court. A candidate rushed at a county fair. A war pricing itself into your tank. And the apostle says: live quietly. Work with your hands. Walk properly before outsiders. That's the witness the world cannot argue with. I'll see you tomorrow.