Trump in Beijing, Kyiv Under Fire, and a 20-Year-Old Sermon — Thu May 14, 2026

This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Today... a president in Beijing, a capital city under fire, and a quiet lesson from a pastor who taught the same book of the Bible twice — twenty years apart. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. [TRANSITION] We start in Beijing. President Trump landed in China on Thursday for a high-stakes summit with President Xi Jinping. The welcome was elaborate. Cheering children. A full troop parade. State pageantry tuned to maximum volume. The two leaders then met behind closed doors for nearly two hours. We don't yet have the readout. Trade, Taiwan, technology, and the war in Ukraine are all on the table. Across Asia, allies are watching closely — South Korea, Japan, the Philippines all wondering what gets traded and what gets traded away. Here's what I keep coming back to. Whenever two of the most powerful men on earth sit down in a room, it is tempting to feel like the future is being decided in that room. And in a real sense... important things are being decided. But Scripture has a long memory about rooms like that. Proverbs 21:1 says, "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 ancient near-eastern monarchs who answered to no one. And the Holy Spirit says even those men — even Xi, even Trump, even kings who would scoff at the suggestion — are streams in the hand of God. He routes them. That doesn't make summits unimportant. It makes them penultimate. The meeting in Beijing matters. It is not, however, the meeting that will set the course of history. That one already happened. On a cross. Outside Jerusalem. [TRANSITION] Now to Kyiv, because while the world watched Beijing, Ukraine buried its dead. Russia launched a massive drone and ballistic missile barrage on the Ukrainian capital overnight. At least one person was killed. Thirty-one were injured. Children are among the wounded. Damage was reported across six districts of the city, and rescuers are still pulling bodies from the rubble of a residential apartment building as we record this. Almost four years into this war, the headlines start to look the same. And that is itself a kind of moral danger. When suffering becomes routine, we stop seeing the people inside it. A mother in Kyiv woke up last night to a sound she has learned to recognize. A father somewhere in that city carried a child down to a basement and prayed the way people pray when the prayers are not eloquent. Romans 12:15 — "Weep with those who weep." That's not a metaphor. That's a command. The church does not get to scroll past Ukraine because the war has gone on too long to feel novel. We are commanded to keep weeping. And we are invited, by the same God, to keep praying for an end to it — knowing that one day the One who is called the Prince of Peace will end every war. Permanently. Not by treaty. By return. Until then... we weep with those who weep. [TRANSITION] A different kind of story now, and a quieter one. Russell Moore wrote this week about teaching through the Book of Hebrews at his church. A year-long study. When he finished, he stumbled across his old notes from the last time he taught the same book — back in 2007. Nearly twenty years ago. He said he was struck by how much the text had not changed... and how much he had. I love this. Because we live in a culture that is allergic to slow things. Slow reading. Slow study. Returning to the same passage you read at twenty-five and finding that at forty-five it is reading you. This is what the Bible itself promises about itself. Hebrews 4:12 — fittingly — says, "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit." Living. Active. Not a static document you finish. A word that finishes you, slowly, over decades. If you have been told that you have read the Bible already... that you graduated from Sunday school and got the gist... I'd gently push back. The book has not moved. You have. Go back. Read it again. The God who breathed it is not done with you. [TRANSITION] Now a few quick briefs. A former Justice Department official, Jonathan Gross, has gone public with sharp criticism of his former bosses. Gross worked on the department's so-called Weaponization Working Group as a Trump appointee. He is now openly accusing the department of the very thing it claimed to oppose. Christians of every political stripe should care when institutions of justice are accused of bending. Proverbs 21:15 — "When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous." When it isn't, we should not look away. The remains of nineteen-year-old Specialist Mariyah Symone Collington have been recovered in Morocco. She is the second U.S. soldier to die after falling from a cliff during a recreational hike. Two young Americans. One family in Florida. Pray for them by name tonight if you can. The Trump administration is waiving a fifteen-thousand-dollar entry bond for foreign fans coming to next year's World Cup. A practical move. Also a reminder of how much money and machinery now orbits a single sporting event. And speaking of that — the 2026 World Cup Final will feature the first-ever halftime show. Shakira, Madonna, and BTS, curated by Chris Martin of Coldplay. I'll just say this. If you had told me ten years ago that soccer would import the Super Bowl's halftime format, I would have laughed. The global culture machine is hungry. Always. [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 Hebrews 13:8. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Summits will come and go. Cities will be struck and rebuilt. You will pick up your Bible at twenty-five and again at forty-five and again at seventy-five. The headlines will be different every single time. He will not be. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. If today's episode helped you breathe a little easier, send it to one person who needs the same thing. The news will keep coming tomorrow. So will we. And so, faithfully, will He.