Having spent more than a decade teaching students at the High School, college, and graduate levels, I have developed a keen interest in AI and its possible impact — both positive and negative — on learning. At the same time, I’ve spent over two decades in pastoral ministry so I’m equally interested to explore the potential impact of AI — both positive and negative — on the way we choose to fulfill our missional purpose to make more and better disciples. Specifically, I want to look at the broad category of AI and its potential impact on how Christians read, interpret, and train others to live out the truth of Scripture.

My interest in the impact of AI on disciple-making was inspired by a recent online panel discussion where some highly influential Christian leaders discussed AI in ministry. This dialogue is relevant — not just because the panelists are respected leaders — but because it was also hosted by one of the most well-funded Christian magazines in the United States. Consequently, the ideas put forth by these men and women will have a wide reach.

Potential Value of AI

First, it’s important to note that the panelists did offer some ideas on how AI can help advance our ministry goals.

1. AI, for example, can be used to help analyze the outline of a meeting agenda to ensure we have covered all the relevant points of interest.
2. AI can also act as a secretary and produce short bullet point summaries of our meeting notes or even suggest action points.
3. AI can help manage volunteer hours to find optimal work schedules. 

To that list, I would add a couple thoughts of my own.

1. AI can turn a sermon manuscript or Bible study into a bulletin-sized promo or even a series of social media posts. This would be of great help to pastors who lead smaller churches and don’t have administrative support.
2. AI can be a helpful tool for churches who want relevant bulletin art but don’t have anyone in their congregation with those talents. Here for example is my take on Jacob wrestling, not with the Angel of God, but with the Angel of AI.

Potential Pitfalls of AI

But along with these good ideas, I also heard a few things during this recent panel discussion that troubled me. I’ll paraphrase their remarks here.

• One leader said, “The smartphone, which uses AI, is one of the closest things we’ve ever created to the Holy Spirit. So, AI is one way we can fulfill our purpose to get into the hearts and minds of the people and help them discover a personal relationship with Jesus.
• Another said, “When we do pastoral counseling, we can use AI as a coach to teach us how to be more compassionate, how to show more empathy, and how to improve our facial expressions to convey the right emotions.”
• Finally, a third panelist said, “We can use generative AI like ChatGPT and Gemini to teach us how to think about complex social issues such as sex and gender ID with a biblical lens.”

Now each of these comments offers a springboard for a myriad of conversations. Can AI really teach us how to be better humans? Can AI help us be more loving and more compassionate? Is generative AI truly able to help us both understand the Bible and apply it rightly to complex social issues?

AI Has Knowledge but Not Wisdom

Throughout this hour-long panel discussion, there was a thread that seemed to connect all of these questions. The underlying belief from these Christian thought leaders was that because AI has access to vast stores of knowledge, therefore AI has the wisdom to make us better humans. Even more, the panelists believed that AI will help Christians become better disciple-makers. AI, they reasoned, will help us become better readers of the word who can better train others to become doers of the Word. But is this a realistic expectation of AI? For a variety of reasons; technologically, philosophically, theologically, and spiritually, I think the answer is no. AI, no matter how advanced it may appear to us, is not a spiritual guide, a life coach, a mentor to young minds, a counselor, or a maker of more and better disciples. AI is a tool designed by humans which means it is prone to error and will oftentimes invent facts out of whole cloth. Consider the recent failure of Gemini to generate accurate images of Hitler’s Nazi soldiers and the founders of Google.

Even more problematic is that many Christian leaders seem unaware that AI is not a neutral observer of the culture but shares the worldview bias of its programmers. And even if AI had consciousness, this would not make it a capable guide to Scripture. Why? Because to know God’s word and be transformed by it requires a relationship with its author. The inability to know God’s word is not just a limitation I have arbitrarily placed upon AI but a limitation that God tells us is endemic to every human who lacks a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I’m reminded of a story told by Mortimer Adler, the noted philosopher and editor of the Great Books of the Western World. Adler lived most of his life as an avowed atheist, but his brilliance captured the attention of many Christians. In one of his books, he recounts how pastors would sometimes invite him to come and preach at their churches. Adler would go to these churches and deliver a Bible-based message that was always well received. Later in life, however, after he came to faith in Jesus, Adler looked back on those times with regret. He realized that while he was able to preach the facts about the Bible, he was never able to fully understand or convey with passion the wisdom of the Bible. What Adler discovered was the lesson taught to us by the Apostle Paul.

“For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:11–16).”

Trusting the Generative Power of God

As we consider the use of AI in ministry, we should remember that no matter how advanced AI may become — even if it were possible that it reaches consciousness — AI will never have the mind of Christ. Can God use AI in some positive ways? Absolutely. In Numbers 22 God used the false prophet Balaam, and even spoke through his donkey. So yes, if God can speak through Balaam’s animal, he can certainly use AI for some good purpose. But this speaks only to the generative power of our God and not the generative power of AI.

Paul’s word to us in 1 Corinthians then should serve as an encouragement, both as educators and ministers of the Gospel. There is no substitute for the Holy Spirit when it comes to rightly discerning the meaning of the Bible and our mission to make more and better disciples, teaching them to obey all the Christ has commanded us, can never be outsourced to technology.