Posted June 17, 2026
President Trump said Tuesday that he hoped the war with Iran would soon be in the “rearview mirror.” According to Switzerland’s foreign ministry, the US-Iran memorandum will be formally signed at the Bügenstock Resort Lake Lucerne on Friday.
In the meantime, pundits are weighing in on the agreement and what it means:
As I noted yesterday, Iran has been a constant and deadly threat to Israel, the US, and the West since the 1979 revolution brought Islamic hardliners to power. Whatever we think of the latest negotiations, however, there is a fact concerning Iranians that we should bear in mind today.
My wife and I were visiting recently with a wise older friend on our walking path. Her husband also walked our path regularly before his death. As we talked about him, she made a statement I have pondered since: a person dies twice if, after their death, their memory is lost. We assured her that her husband would have no such “second death.”
My father’s birthday was last Saturday; he would have been 102 years old. For many years, each birthday after his death at the age of fifty-five was a time of grief for me as I thought of all the years he missed.
But as time passed, his birthday became less a marker of sadness since he likely would not have lived to that age. It never occurs to me that he would have lived to ninety or one hundred. Now I remember his birthday less with sorrow over his death than with gratitude for his life.
And what I remember most is what he did, not what he said. I remember time together repairing old cars (the only kind we could afford), seeing him in the audience at my music performances, and the many days when his health was difficult but he never complained.
The Portuguese priest St. Anthony of Padua died in 1231 on the same date as my father’s birth in 1924. Anthony was a brilliant theologian and fearless preacher; more cities and places around the world are named after him than any other saint. He noted:
The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience, and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. . . . It is useless for a man to flaunt his knowledge of the law if he undermines its teaching by his actions.
James agreed: “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17).
However, while “actions speak louder than words,” there are some truths that can only be communicated through words, including the gospel.
A church sign in our area says, “A Christian preaches by what he does, not by what he says.” Paul would disagree, asking, “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14).
Last week I quoted the film critic Roger Ebert, who said, “All I require of a religion is that it not insist I believe in it.” He added, “I know a priest, a lovely man, whose eyes twinkle when he says, ‘You go about God’s work in your way, and I’ll go about it in His.’”
With all due respect to the priest, that’s not good enough.
If Roger Ebert had a deadly cancer and I were an oncologist who knew his dire condition and could save him from it, what word would describe my unwillingness to share what I know?
This brings us back to the Iranians. There are more than ninety-two million of them. While the underground Christian movement in Iran is the fastest-growing church in the world, it presently includes less than 1 percent of the country.
If we blame the people for their government and do not pray for their salvation and for Iranian Christians who can speak the truth of the gospel to them, this says less about them than it does about us. By contrast, if we grieve for their lostness and intercede for their eternal souls, we join Jesus as he does both today.
And if we embrace the opportunity to share our Lord with our neighbor, we obey both Great Commandments at once (Matthew 22:37–39).
According to Jesus, “Out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
What will your words say about your heart today?
“We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first.” —Oswald J. Smith
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