Latest / The Gospel Briefing / Paxton Topples Cornyn, Biden Sues DOJ, Love Rightly — Wed May 27, 2026
Transcript
- This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Today... a senator falls in Texas, a former president sues to keep his own voice from being heard, and a quiet question from the apostle Paul about what it means for a man to love rightly. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. [TRANSITION] We start in Texas, where the political story of the year just landed. Ken Paxton — the state's controversial attorney general — defeated four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff last night. Cornyn has been in the Senate since 2002. He's a former whip, a former judiciary chair, a fixture of the Republican establishment. And he lost. Decisively. To a man who was impeached by his own party's state house in 2023, acquitted by the state senate, and remains under federal scrutiny. President Trump endorsed Paxton. The race cost Republicans more than one hundred million dollars. And it sets up a November showdown that both parties now consider a genuine toss-up. Here's what I keep coming back to. Political headlines like this push us to one of two emotional ditches. Either we treat the outcome like a catastrophe... or we treat it like a coronation. Scripture refuses both reactions. Proverbs 21:1 — "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever He will." That verse was written about actual kings. With actual armies. Who actually ruled with absolute power. And the Holy Spirit, through Solomon, says even those men are streams of water in the hand of God. How much more a senator from Texas. This doesn't mean every politician is godly. It means no politician is sovereign. There is exactly one throne that doesn't change hands in November. And the One who sits on it has not been surprised by a single ballot cast in this country's history. [TRANSITION] Story two. Former President Joe Biden has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice. He's trying to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from his interview with a ghostwriter — material obtained during the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents. The transcripts are already public. The audio... is not. And Biden's legal team is fighting hard to keep it that way. There's something deeply human in this story. And deeply old. We don't mind people reading our words on a page. The page is sanitized. The page can be edited. But the sound of our own voice — the hesitation, the slur, the pause where we lost the thread — that's harder to control. That's the unedited self. Scripture has a word for this instinct. It's hiding. It goes back to the garden. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves and ducked into the trees, not because God didn't know where they were, but because they didn't want to be seen as they actually were. Jesus said in John 3 — "People loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil." That's not just about scandalous sin. It's about all of us. The instinct to control the recording. To curate the version of ourselves that gets played back. Christians believe something radical here. We believe there is a God who has already heard the audio. Every word. Every tone. Every private conversation. And the gospel is that, in Christ, we can stop hiding. The blood of Jesus covers what the lawsuit cannot. [TRANSITION] Third story. And this one is from our friends at Christianity Today. A piece this week titled "Men Who Love Rightly Can Live Well." The argument is simple and the argument is needed. The apostle Paul, in Romans 13, says the whole law is summed up in one command — love your neighbor as yourself. In First Corinthians 13, he says you can speak with the tongues of angels, you can give away everything you own, you can have faith to move mountains — and if you don't have love, you are nothing. Nothing. That's the word Paul uses. We live in a moment where men, particularly young men, are being told a thousand different stories about what manhood is. Strength. Dominance. Provision. Stoicism. Some of those instincts have real value. But Scripture cuts through every one of them with a question that doesn't show up in the algorithm — do you love rightly? Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, knelt down and washed the feet of the men who would abandon Him within hours. That is the model. Not weakness. Not softness. Strength bent toward the good of another. Power under control. Love that costs something. If you are a man listening to this, or you love one — that's the question worth sitting with today. Not "am I winning." But "am I loving rightly." [TRANSITION] Now to the quick briefs. South Carolina Republicans have rejected a Trump-backed plan to redraw congressional maps. The majority-Black district held by Congressman Jim Clyburn for thirty-four years stays intact for now. Proverbs 22:28 — "Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set." Sometimes faithful governance is knowing what not to change. NPR is reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is spending millions of dollars on iris recognition scanners. Hundreds of devices are being deployed across the country, building a federal database of biometric data. Christians can disagree about immigration enforcement. We should agree that any government amassing biometric records on its own people deserves serious scrutiny. Psalm 139 reminds us only One has the right to know us that completely. President Trump will gather his Cabinet today as talks aimed at ending the war with Iran reach a precarious moment. The emerging deal has drawn fierce criticism from both directions. Pray for wisdom. Pray for restraint. Pray for the lives in the balance. And finally — yes, this is real — UFC president Dana White confirmed plans to build a fighting arena on the White House lawn. I have nothing scriptural to add. I just wanted you to know. [TRANSITION] In a moment you'll hear today's verse. What you do with it after — that's where Bible Copilot comes in. It's an inductive Bible study app — open any verse, ask anything about it, and it walks you through it: observe, interpret, apply. One rule: Scripture interprets Scripture. No outside commentary. No agenda. Free — no ads, no account, no data collection. Pro is five dollars a month for unlimited studies and guided reading plans. Search "Bible Copilot" in the App Store. Link's in the show notes. Today's verse is First Corinthians 13, verses one and two. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." A senator wins. A president sues. A man asks what love looks like. The headlines change every twenty-four hours. The standard does not. Without love, Paul says, all of it is noise. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. Share this episode with one person who needs a quieter way to hear the news today. The kingdoms of this world come and go. Christ's does not. I'll see you tomorrow.