President Donald Trump will participate in the upcoming America Reads the Bible event.
Trump will read 2 Chronicles 7:11–22 during the event, which is commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence.
The event features 475 American political, cultural, and religious leaders reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It begins Sunday and ends Saturday.
“We needed somebody special to read Second Chronicles chapter seven,” Bunni Pounds, president of Christians Engaged, said, according to Fox News.
“As my director and I were praying over different sections of scripture, it came to us that this is such a critical passage for the body of Christ,” she added.
Pounds said verse 14 is a core part of America’s generations of prayer life.
“It comes at a time where the Israelites were experiencing hardship and God spoke and said, ‘If my people that are called by my name would humble themselves and pray,’” Pounds said. “We’ve prayed this scripture for at least the last 50 years of American history on National Day of Prayer and other moments in this country.”
“And so we instantly said — who needs to read that? The President of the United States,” she said. “We set it aside for him and have been praying for that for the last year.”
Verse 14 reads, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Pounds said Trump’s participation sends a powerful message in 21st century America.
“I think he’s sending a message that faith matters in this country, and that it’s important not only personally, but for our nation overall,” she said.
Trump recorded his message in advance.
“They’re going to see how passionate he is about it, how deliberate he was,” she said. “It really struck me to see the leader of the free world reading scripture from the Oval Office.”
“There’s a humility on him… and I don’t believe that he would have read it if he didn’t believe it,” she said.
Pounds said everyone participating will read from the King James Version Easy Read edition.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and House Speaker Mike Johnson will also participate.
Trump will appear between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday, during a block of time that will also include former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, according to The New York Times.
Other readers during the daily sessions that go from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. include Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
“From Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World and the first permanent English-speaking settlement at Jamestown to our founding in 1776 and to the present day, the Bible has been indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life,” Trump wrote in a presidential message.
“Nearly 400 years ago, a decade after the arrival of the Mayflower, the legendary John Winthrop powerfully invoked Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew: ‘We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us,’ Winthrop said, imploring his fellow Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for all the world to see,” Trump wrote.
“In every generation, through every trial and triumph, God’s Word has guided our people and our country to incredible new heights,” Trump wrote, adding that “the America Reads the Bible initiative invites all citizens to once again acknowledge our Nation’s extraordinary Biblical foundations and to give thanks for the countless ways in which God has been the sacred source of our unity and national strength.”
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