Jesse Joyner

A few weeks ago, I sat down with my youth ministry students and did something a little unconventional for my department at LeTourneau University – I asked them to generate a youth group Bible study on Philippians 2. I say unconventional because, while AI is an acceptable tool for certain tasks in certain disciplines at certain times, our particular school (the School of Theology and Vocation) more or less bans the use of AI for graded assignments.

But today, I wanted to learn, alongside my students, what various AI bots would spit out when asked to write a Bible study for youth. Each student had their laptop out (another unconventional thing, as our class is normally device-free) and used their AI application of choice (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Co-Pilot). I then asked them to prompt their programs with the command, “Write me a Bible study for high school youth on the topic of Philippians 2.”

Within seconds, we had ten different Bible study lessons, full with outlines, icebreakers, object lessons, activities, discussions, talks, and life applications. All neatly packaged into a ready-to-go lesson for the busy youth pastor. We discussed what looked good at first glance. We discussed what appeared to fall short in the lessons. But I was very proud of my students, because they dove into a hearty discussion not just about the pros and cons of the lessons they saw, but also the fundamental principles at play when a ministry leader chooses to let AI come up with the Bible study.

They pointed out that with AI, you lose the personal touch of a leader telling their story, sharing their testimony, and embodying the material of the Biblical text. One student said that with AI, you strip away the work of the Holy Spirit in guiding a leader to prepare a lesson for shepherding God’s people. That led to a deeper discussion about whether people can or can’t get saved as a result of sitting under an AI-generated sermon or Bible study. We also discussed how AI is basically a time-saving shortcut that, again, strips away the element of the leader soaking in the text and preparing to teach God’s Word the way saints have done so for thousands of years. One student said they can tell right away when a leader has not allowed the text to speak into their own life first because when faced with questions, the leader will just look foolish and unprepared. That is what AI can do. Whether we like it or not, AI shapes us and our work, and we concluded as a class that the shaping AI provides is not a good type of shaping.

AI can be good at data and information, but when you crossover into knowledge and wisdom (which I would argue is the work of ministry), AI simply cannot do what humans made in the image of God can do (Vineet Rajan, “From Data to Wisdom,” Christianity Today July/Aug 2025, pp. 60-61). Humans are made in the image of God. AI is made in the image of man. 19th Century polymath John Ruskin once said,

“No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a thousand yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser…..A fool always wants to shorten space and time: a wise man wants to lengthen both. A fool wants to kill space and kill time. A wise man, first to gain them, then to animate them. Your railroad, when you come to understand it, is only a device for making the world smaller: and as for being able to talk from place to place, that is indeed, well and convenient; but suppose you have, originally, nothing to say. We shall be obliged at last to confess, what we should long ago have known, that the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace” (Ruskin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 381).

Ministry is the work of Jesus Christ. We are invited into that work, in service to others and unto the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit (see Steve Seamands, Ministry in the Image of God, pp. 9-10). May we not get lost in the temptation to speed things up with AI when that speed will never make us any the wiser.