Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) loves to trade on his image as a man of God. He’s a pastor, albeit at a progressive church, and he reminds people that he’s a pastor every chance he gets. He did it again on the Senate floor on Sunday during the debate over the One Big Beautiful Bill, and he relied on the beloved left-wing trope of using scripture to call for bigger government.
“I have especially been thinking about those of us who are people of faith, people whose lives are informed by scripture, people of the book,” he said. “And maybe those of us who have different politics, but read from the same book oughta spend some time together reading the book. Because I do sometimes wonder, and I say this with all humility, none of us, none of us owns the truth.”
I’ll stop right there to say that I agree with him on this one thing. We don’t “own” the truth. All truth, especially the truth in the Bible, is God’s truth. Of course, it didn’t take long for Warnock to take his reading of scripture in the wrong direction:
But if I'm honest, there are days when I have to ask people of my faith tradition as a Christian: Are we reading the same book? The book I know says, "I was hungry and you fed me. I was sick, I was in prison and you visited me. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Inasmuch as you've done it to the least of these, you've done it also unto me." The book that I love says, "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rescue the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow. Speak out for those who cannot speak for the rights of the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously. Defend the rights of the poor and the needy."
My book says, "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid in full." The prophet Amos condemns those who buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They sell the poor out and working-class people for cheap.
And for those of us who have a vote in this moment, for my colleagues who are swinging on a moral dilemma, I hear the prophet Micah say he has already told you what is good. And what does the Lord require but that you do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?
The senator references four scriptures in that exchange. The primary one is Matthew 25:31-46, in which Jesus tells His disciples how He will judge people at the final judgment. Progressive Christians (and some leftists who aren’t even believers) love to use that passage to call for government solutions to poverty. Jesus said that His followers will take care of “the least of these,” so in the minds of leftists, the Lord is calling us to use our taxes to allow government to care for the poor and needy.
Related: The GOP Can Increase Its Margins in the Senate in '26 and '28. It Starts With These Two Seats.
The other verses that Warnock cites are shorter ones that emphasize that God wants His people to take care of those in need. Proverbs 19:17 tells us that “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.” Amos 8:6 is part of the prophet’s admonition against those who exploit people so that they may “buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat.” And Micah 6:8 reminds us: “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?”
None of those verses calls on us to cede the care of the poor to government. These commands are for individual believers, families, and churches to take care of those in need. But liberals like Warnock take those verses and twist them to claim that God calls our governments to have large welfare systems that throw money at the needy on the backs of taxpayers.
Indulge me in some Bible geekery here for a second. The word for letting the Bible speak for itself and getting meaning from the text is exegesis. That’s how we should approach God’s Word. Its opposite is eisegesis: throwing one’s preconceived ideas and biases onto a text. Warnock is engaging in eisegesis here, and left-wing Christians do this all the time.
The trouble is that Warnock should know better as a pastor. Shame on him for not interpreting the Bible like a shepherd of God’s flock should.
Faith. Freedom. Facts.
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