An A. I. Bible? The famous Depeche Mode song spoke about having your own personal Jesus. But in the 1989 hit, this happens by lifting up the telephone receiver. Nowadays, it’s happening by touching one’s screen or speaking to one’s smartphone. At an ever-increasing rate, Siri, Gemini, chatbots, and search engines are replacing the standard leatherbound editions of the Bible.
What is good news is that sites and platforms like Bible Gateway and You Version are reaching and equipping many people with Bibles online.
What is not so good news is that, independent of such sites, there are those who consult the Bible almost entirely through A. I. Also, chatbots have become the go-to place for some to inquire about one’s personal problems rather than praying to God or seeking godly counsel.
Our consulting A. I. regarding the Bible is not the same thing as actually reading the Bible. Let’s take a closer look at this.
Simulating the Bible rather than reading it
I recently asked a chatbot for three good passages from the Gospel of Matthew. I received the reply, “Love the question” along with commendations for Matthew. The three texts I received, complete with explanation on what makes them “good” were the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1–12, the “I will give you rest” passage in Matt 11:25–30, and the Great Commission in Matt 28:16–20.
There is nothing technically wrong with this. In fact, if this is the only way a person would bother to read portions of the Bible, it might even be a good thing.
My concern, however, is that the person who consults the Bible this way might get the impression that he or she has now “read” the Bible and “knows” Matthew, or John, Psalms, Paul, etc., simply by consulting select passages from a given book.
Problematic is that the Bible is not to be read randomly like this. It is to be read book by book if we are to gain a proper contextual understanding of what we are reading. See my “Bible Reading and the Worst Version of All.”
A good question to ask A. I., then, is this: “Here are the hours I work during the week. Now present me with a workable plan in which I could read the entire Bible through in about a year.”
Requesting A.I. for help rather than praying to God
Why wait for divine intervention when we can receive an instant answer to our problems by consulting artificial intelligence? I can think of at least three reasons off the top of my head: (1) A. I. is not an actual person. (2) A. I. is not God(!) (3) It is quite possible that, in a given situation, A. I. might provide us with a solution that is precisely what God does not want for us.
Praying draws us close to God, and God desires a personal relationship with us that A.I. cannot provide.
God may not speak to us right away, and that might be a good thing if what we really need is patience. But He eventually will “speak,” whether through circumstances, a deep sense of peace, Scripture, a dream, a preaching or teaching, godly advice from church members, or some other means or combination of things.
Fabricating a personal genie in an A.I. bottle?
With A. I. there is no one on the other line except for a non-personal tool collecting data to spit out Bible verses for us. It is a make-believe Jesus. No doubt, these tools are powerful, but they are not omnipotent.
Let’s prefer reading the real Bible and personally consulting the real Lord.
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