President reads 2 Chronicles from Oval Office for America Reads the Bible project
President Donald Trump holds up a Bible in front of St. John Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020. Photo: White House via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Today, as part of an initiative called “America Reads the Bible,” the President of the United States read 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 from the Oval Office.
Critics have noted that this particular passage is oft repeated by white Christian Nationalists—especially in gatherings of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups. The reading also pushes against recent statements of Pope Leo XIV, taken by the administration to be critiques of the President.
Despite that, the reading also has deep ironies that organizers may not have considered.
This ancient text from 2 Chronicles reads like a blueprint for the soul of a country. It captures a moment when a leader has finished building his big projects and feels like he’s on top of the world. But then, in the middle of the night, a warning comes through that changes everything.
The message is simple. All the gold and all the big buildings, all the arches and grand ballrooms, all the parades and shows of strength, don’t mean a thing if the person in charge is empty on the inside.
When we think about what makes a country healthy, this passage says everything starts with humility. It tells us that a real leader isn't measured by how many monuments he puts his name on or how loud he can brag.
Instead, it’s about whether he can put his own ego aside. When a leader refuses to be humble, he’s basically saying he is more important than the laws and the people he’s supposed to lead. That isn't just a personality quirk. It is a disaster for everyone.
Think about the kind of leader who treats a high office like a personal business. This is someone who doesn’t see a nation to help, but a way to make his own brand bigger. Instead of looking out for the public, every decision is about making himself look good. In his mind, the country’s money is a bank account for him and his buddies. He doesn't see power as a responsibility; he sees it as a weapon to get back at his enemies and reward people who never tell him no.
The Gospel is very clear that if you build your house on sand, it’s going to fall. When a leader spends all day demanding people tell him how great he is and all night planning his next revenge, he is standing on very shaky ground.
There is a deep spiritual rot that happens when the person at the top gets rich with his friends while everyone else struggles under the weight of his vanity. This Scripture shows us that when a ruler chooses self-worship over doing what is right, things will eventually fall apart.
The most biting part of this warning is what happens at the end. It describes a future where people walk past the ruins of what used to be a great nation and wonder what went wrong.
The answer isn't that they ran out of money or lost a war. It’s that they lost their character.
When a leader forgets that he has to answer to something higher than his own ego, he’s headed for a fall that everyone will see.
We’ve seen this happen over and over. A leader shows up who is obsessed with his own face on a screen. He claims he’s the only one who can fix things, but then he uses every chance he gets to turn people against each other and grab more cash. He thinks being humble is for losers, so he never stops to think he might be wrong.
He uses the Church and its symbols like props for a show, while completely ignoring the call to actually be a good person or turn away from mean-spirited behavior.
In the end, this reading is a sharp wake-up call for any arrogant ruler. It tells us that no amount of money or fame can save a country if the leader chooses getting even over making peace, or chooses greed over being kind.
If the person in charge only cares about making himself look big, the whole country starts to break down.
The call to be humble and change your ways isn't just a nice thought. It’s the only way to keep a nation from becoming a famous example of what not to do.
