Louisiana Tragedy, Insider Trading Questions & Standing on Scripture — April 20, 2026

This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Carlos Reyes. Today... a father in Louisiana does the unthinkable to his own children. The president faces new questions about who's getting rich off what he knows. And a woman walks away from a fractured church looking for the one thing that doesn't shift. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. I want to tell you about a house in Louisiana. And I want you to resist the urge to know immediately what to do with this story. On Sunday afternoon, in a small community outside Baton Rouge, a man shot and killed eight children. Seven of them were his own. Three boys and five girls. The youngest was three years old. The oldest was eleven. Let that sit for a moment. Officials have not yet released his name or the full picture of what happened inside that home. What they have said is that the children were found together. That first responders who walked into that house will not forget what they saw for the rest of their lives. And that a mother somewhere is now burying seven of her babies at once. There is no clean theological move here. There is no verse that makes this smaller than it is. If you feel wrecked reading this, that is the correct response. The Bible does not ask us to be unmoved by evil. Jesus wept at a single funeral. He did not lecture. He wept. What Scripture does give us is a category for what happened. Not an explanation — a category. Psalm 11 says the Lord's eyes see, His eyelids test the children of man. Nothing that happened in that house was hidden. Not one child's terror. Not one second of it. And the God who saw will not forget. Romans 12 tells believers, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." That verse is not a comfort when everything is fine. It is a lifeline when the court of earthly justice feels impossibly small next to the size of the crime. Pray for that mother tonight. Pray for those first responders. And if you have children in your house, go hold them a little longer than usual. A very different story now, but one that touches on something Scripture has a lot to say about. The BBC published an investigation this week into unusual trading activity around announcements made by President Trump. Reporters identified a pattern. Spikes in specific trades. Positioned just before public statements from the White House that moved markets. The implication is that someone, somewhere, knew what was coming. And someone, somewhere, made a great deal of money. The White House denies any wrongdoing. No charges have been filed. Legal experts interviewed by the BBC say the pattern is suggestive but not yet proven. This story will run for months. Here is what I keep coming back to. Insider trading, at its root, is a sin the Bible named thousands of years ago. It is using private knowledge to enrich yourself at the expense of your neighbor who does not have it. Proverbs 11:1 says, "A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight." That verse was written for merchants in an open-air market three thousand years ago. It applies just as cleanly to a hedge fund with a Bloomberg terminal. Christians should care about this kind of story regardless of which party is in power. The principle does not flex. If the scales are rigged, the scales are rigged. And God, Proverbs says, is watching the scales. Overseas now, to a story that Christians specifically should pay attention to. In southern Lebanon, near the village of Maroun al-Ras, an Israeli soldier was filmed vandalizing a statue of Jesus. The footage shows him striking the statue repeatedly. The Israeli military has said it views the incident "with great severity." The US ambassador to Lebanon has demanded swift consequences. I want to be careful here. One soldier's actions do not represent a nation, a military, or a people. The Israeli government itself is condemning what he did. That matters. But the image of that statue, beaten and broken, is striking for another reason. It is an almost perfect picture of what Scripture says already happened to Jesus Himself. Isaiah 53 says, "He was despised and rejected by men... and we esteemed him not." A soldier struck Jesus. Soldiers mocked Him. Soldiers drove the nails. The difference is that the statue cannot respond. Jesus did. He prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That is the Christ we follow. Not a statue. A risen King who absorbed the blow and offered mercy back. A few more stories on your radar tonight. Japan's meteorological agency is warning that a second, potentially stronger earthquake could strike within the next week. Tsunami advisories remain in place along parts of the eastern coast. Pray for the Japanese church, which is small but faithful, as they minister in a country where the ground itself keeps reminding people that nothing here is permanent. Hebrews tells us we seek a city with foundations. Japan knows why that verse matters. In the United Kingdom, BBC Panorama released a sobering report on rising antisemitism. British Jews describe being spat at, threatened, and in one case kidnapped. Christians should be the first to say clearly... hatred of the Jewish people is sin. Full stop. Romans 12 calls us to weep with those who weep. Oil prices jumped again after President Trump announced the US had seized an Iranian ship. Markets have been whiplashing since February. If your retirement account is giving you anxiety, Matthew 6 is still in the Bible. He feeds the sparrows. He sees you. And in New Zealand, Wellington is under a state of emergency after severe flooding. Homes hit by landslides, cars submerged. Pray for the rescue workers there tonight. Today's episode is brought to you by Bible Copilot. If today's news made you want to open Scripture with a little more depth, it's worth a look. Five inductive study modes, guided reading plans, no ads, no data collection. Free in the App Store — link's in the show notes. Christianity Today ran a piece this weekend about a woman named Sandra Anderson. She described recent years as shocking and confusing. Political polarization. A fractured church. Christian nationalism on one side, theological drift on the other. She said she just wanted to give where the voice of truth was loud. So she went back to the Word itself. Which brings me to today's verse. Isaiah 40, verse 8. "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." Headlines will shift. Markets will swing. Even the ground in Japan will move again this week. Scripture will not. It stood before any of this, and it will stand after. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. If today's episode helped you, share it with one friend who needs steady ground this week. I'll see you tomorrow.