US Strikes Iran Again, Inflation Soars & Mrs. Jellyby — June 11, 2026

This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Today... the United States strikes Iran for the second time in a week. Inflation hits a three-year high. And a nineteenth-century novelist diagnoses a temptation that just showed up in this week's headlines. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. [TRANSITION] We start in the Middle East. Overnight, the United States launched a second round of airstrikes against Iranian targets. The Pentagon confirmed the strikes early this morning. They follow the first wave from earlier in the week, and they signal what officials are now calling a sustained campaign rather than a one-time response. Details are still developing. We know American aircraft hit sites tied to Iran's missile production and what the administration is describing as command infrastructure. We do not yet have a full casualty count. We do not yet know how Iran will respond. Markets opened jittery. Oil ticked up. And every parent of a service member woke up to a different kind of morning. Here's where I want to be careful. Christians genuinely disagree about the use of military force. Just war theory has a long and serious history in the church, going back to Augustine. Faithful believers can look at the same airstrike and reach different conclusions about whether it was justified. That disagreement is not a sign that the church is broken. It's a sign that we're taking the question seriously. But Scripture does give us something to stand on while we sort it out. Psalm 46 was written by people who knew what it sounded like when nations raged. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea." Notice what the psalmist does not say. He does not say the mountains will not move. He says... when they do, God is still God. We pray for restraint. We pray for our military families. We pray for the people of Iran, many of whom are themselves suffering under a regime they did not choose. And we remember that the One who sits enthroned over the nations is not nervous this morning. [TRANSITION] Next story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its May inflation report, and the number is not what the White House wanted to see. Inflation rose to its highest level in more than three years. Grocery prices climbed again. Energy costs jumped, partly on the Iran news. The Federal Reserve is now facing pressure from both directions... cut rates to help families, or hold the line to fight prices. There is no clean answer. For a lot of households, this is not an abstract data point. It's the third time this year you've stood in the cereal aisle and quietly put something back. Proverbs has a phrase I keep coming back to in seasons like this. Proverbs 30:8. "Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me." That is not a prayer most of us would write on our own. We tend to ask for abundance, or we ask to be rescued from scarcity. Agur, the man who wrote those words, asked for something stranger. He asked for daily bread. He asked for enough. Hard economic seasons are not punishment, and they are not random. They are an invitation to learn a kind of trust that comfortable seasons cannot teach. If your budget is tight this month, you are in good company. You are in the company of saints who learned to pray for today's bread and let tomorrow alone. [TRANSITION] Third story. And this one comes from Christianity Today, and it stopped me. The piece is built around a character most of us forgot about from high school English. Mrs. Jellyby. She shows up in Charles Dickens's 1853 novel Bleak House. Dickens describes her as a woman consumed with a cause in Africa. She writes letters. She raises money. She gives speeches about suffering thousands of miles away. And her own child falls down the stairs while she's writing those letters. And she doesn't notice. Dickens called it telescopic philanthropy. Big heart for the far away. Blind eye for the near at hand. Christianity Today applied this to our current political moment. Whether the figure is a senate candidate or a former president, the pattern is the same. Loud public compassion. Quiet personal wreckage. And we, the watching public, have learned to celebrate the speech and ignore the staircase. But here's the harder turn. The article doesn't just point at politicians. It points at us. It is easier to repost an outrage about Gaza than to text the neighbor whose husband just moved out. It is easier to argue about immigration on the internet than to learn the name of the woman who cleans your office building. James 1:27. "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this... to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." Visit. Not post about. Not tweet about. Visit. I am preaching to myself here. The temptation to feel righteous about things far away is the oldest substitute for actually loving the person in front of you. And the gospel will not let us settle for the cheaper version. [TRANSITION] Quick briefs. The Knicks completed a stunning comeback against the San Antonio Spurs last night. Down twenty-nine points. They won by one. They lead the NBA Finals three games to one, on the brink of their first title since 1973. A reminder that the game is not over until it's over, and Proverbs 24:16 quietly applies. "The righteous falls seven times and rises again." The 2026 World Cup kicked off in Mexico this week. Forty-eight teams. One thousand two hundred forty-eight players. Here in the United States, along the 7 train in Queens, immigrant neighborhoods are watching their home countries play with the kind of joy that reminds you the kingdom of God is going to include every tribe and tongue. Revelation 7 is going to be loud. And good. SpaceX is preparing an initial public offering aiming to raise seventy-five billion dollars. It would be one of the largest in history. Ambition is not a sin. But Babel is a warning. What we build with our hands tells the truth about what we trust. And in Northern Ireland, a second night of unrest in Belfast following a stabbing. Anti-immigrant violence is spreading. Pray for that city. Pray for the families involved. Pray for clarity that does not curdle into hatred. [TRANSITION] Today's verse is Micah 6:8. "He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Hear that against today's news. Airstrikes overseas. Grocery prices at home. Big public causes and small private failures. Micah does not give us a foreign policy. He gives us a posture. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. The world will spin. Your calling will not. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. If today's episode helped you, send it to one person who's been carrying the weight of the headlines alone. The mountains may move. Our God does not. I'll see you tomorrow.