Speaker 1 0:00 So, can AI help you understand the Bible? We're going to talk about it today on the Why do Christians podcast. Hey, welcome to the show. My name is Mark Dickey. I host the afternoon show on the Bridge Radio station. My co-host is Pastor Burt Miller today. Hey, Pastor Bert. Hey, radio host Mark. Hey, I got a bone to pick with you. Wow! Right out of the gate, go. AI. Okay. What's the deal? What computers? Hear me out. They're the future. Okay. And the past. Speaker 2 0:35 Ah. Okay. Okay. All Speaker 1 0:36 right. Speaker 2 0:36 If the matrix is matrix is to be believed, it's the present as well. Speaker 1 0:41 Oh wow! Okay, I'm excited to talk about this because I very much do not like using AI. Okay, how do you feel about Speaker 2 0:51 it? I like it. I think it. I think it has its benefits and also concerns. Like AI, like anything else, I think it's a tool that, when used correctly and with understanding of its limitations, it can be beneficial. Speaker 1 1:07 I'm Speaker 2 1:08 not someone even even though like if you were to look at my my like my Instagram feed right now, you'll find plenty of reels of I don't know what I've told the algorithm, but like playing for reels that like are robots turning and kicking people. So, but I'm not. As far as I know, I'm not like a doomsday. Like you know, the computers are gonna take us all out. I don't know that or think that. So I'm not inherently against it. I use AI in a bunch of different ways, but not to be clear, not to write sermons. I think that would be unethical. But yeah, I think it just depends on how you use it. Speaker 1 1:49 Yeah. Well, my first, like my first beef with it, working at the Christian radio station, I was googling a Bible verse that I wanted to share on the on the radio. Okay. Google's AI assistant right at the top. The seven results. Speaker 2 2:02 Okay. Speaker 1 2:03 It gave me the Bible verse, and I asked for it in the NIV. It gave me the Bible verse in the wrong translation. Speaker 2 2:11 Okay. Speaker 1 2:11 And that was kind of just like red flag number one. Like, oh, I I know I can't trust this as being faultless, like I still have to dig through it and make sure that what it's kicking back to me is actually accurate. Speaker 2 2:27 Yeah, well, that's that's the trick with it, right? Like, so we call it AI. Artificial intelligence is not an intelligence. Essentially, what AI is is an adaptive web search, right? So it's it's searching the net and it's compiling things in a way that it thinks you want, which means you have to take everything that it does with a grain of salt. You guys have similar experience where last week I was working on Sermon for Sunday, and there was a quote from a book that I had read that I wanted, but I didn't have the physical copy on me, and I couldn't figure out where, like, like what version of Kindle or Logos or whatever I had, I had it on. So I just typed into my AI researcher. I was like, "Hey, in this book, there's a part where the author talks about this. Can you find me that quote? So, so it fires back. Oh yeah, no problem. Here you go. And I look at it. I'm like, this is not the quote. And like, in I'll just tell you what the book was. Book was Case for Miracles by Lee Shrobel, where he interviews a bunch of different people. And so it's telling me like, oh, you know, here's it's from this person. I'm like, I know it's not that person. And so I ended up getting the the book out. And I don't know, this is petty. I got the book. I put the quote into the AI. I was like, "This is what I was looking for. As though like the AI's be like, "Oh, okay, sorry, I'll fix it for the future. But yeah, it's one of those things where it will present as fact things that might not be fact, and depending on the the AI engine-that's not the word-but depending on the AI that you use, you're going to have different results, but all of it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Speaker 1 4:05 Okay, so a lot of the things you just described, if we changed AI to preacher, yeah, there's a preacher who doesn't quite get it right. Would you keep going to that church if they kept getting their information wrong, if they were studying the Bible and delivering Bible without it being accurate, Speaker 2 4:27 how good's the music, Mark? Maybe that's the reason. Okay, all right. Yeah, I mean, I think it would warrant a conversation with the preacher, right? Although perpetually, you're not going to have that with AI. That's that's kind of the problem, right? Like so. the The problem with AI when it comes to studying the Bible is it will tell you what it thinks you want to hear, even when you tell it not to fabricate, it will probably fabricate some things, right? So like with your with your searching, hey, I want this verse and this. Translation and it not doing that, it's probably your background with Bible stuff that made you know, oh, this is not what I asked for at all, right? Yeah. So if you've got a person who has no Bible background and just oh, cool, cool, got it, that could be a lot of problems. And so I think it can be a tool for searching. You just have to be mindful that that tool is very flawed, which is why you know. Like, how many times on this show do we talk this idea of like the Christian life is not meant to be done alone? That we are made for community. This is yet another reason why you should be part of a church. Why you should have people who know you, who can disciple you, invest in your life that like Bible studies with people that you can go to, people who have spent decades studying the text. Right, that's that's going to be probably way better of a guide than chat or Gemini or Claude, although I use all of those things, but it's probably more reliable to talk with human beings. Speaker 1 6:09 Yeah, I'm. I mean, the way. Yeah, the way you're describing that, where it gives you what what it thinks you want to hear from it, that's like the fault of so many personal Bible studies where we read a Bible verse and we go, "Oh, this totally matters, you know, to the situation I'm going through, and you're totally taking it out of. I'm saying totally a lot. You're taking that verse out of context to apply it to your life right now, and that just sounds very similar. Speaker 2 6:39 Yeah, essentially, what you've done is you've wow. So you've created a digital echo chamber. Speaker 1 6:47 Yeah, Speaker 2 6:48 right. Like what what you're doing is you're speaking into the internet. Hey, I'm looking for this. It gives you its version of you with the thing that you asked, and it throws it back to you. Only it might be wrong, but now it's reinforced the thing with you, and so just around and around and around the carousel goes. Yeah. Again, like that doesn't mean that you can't get accurate information through AI. Like, look, man, I'll tell you, like, just like the way that I use it for my own study. So, what I do is, you know, I have like if I'm writing content, I use a program called Logos Bible Software. It's not like they don't sponsor us yet, but yeah, but I love them, and they've got in it like I've got a library of all my different commentaries and books and stuff like that. And then there's a there's a study assistant where what it's an AI thing with it where it will search not the internet, it'll search my books. So let's say, all right, hey, I'm looking for a history of the 12 tribes of Israel because I've done that. All right, it's going to search my books and give me the sources with it, and then so I can I can double check everything that it's doing. That's safer than something like Chat GPT, where what Chat GPT will do is it's it's what's called chat. It it is trying to have a conversation with you, so it will fill in gaps that it doesn't have to complete the way a conversation should go. It will fabricate, and it's also why I don't know if you had this experience like you know with with any AI where it tells you something that's wrong, and you go, oh no, it's not that. It's this, and and it will immediately. It won't fight you on. Oh, you know what? You're right. I didn't see that. Yeah, it's actually yeah. Have some conviction here, Gemini. I Speaker 1 8:30 feel like something that AI can struggle with is the fact that it's taking in a bunch of information and and summarizing it and trying to help you understand what its point is. It's actually kind of undoing a lot of words that are there very intentionally, and so you're actually further removing the context. Speaker 2 8:53 Yeah, dude. You remind me of it reminds me of Jurassic Park, where like no, not not not the Nedry. Like the the thing with Malcolm, where he's like, you were so obsessed with whether or not you could that you didn't think if you should. It's like you got all this. I'm not saying like the the invention of AI. I mean like what the AI does. So like it's got all this information, but it doesn't necessarily. I keep thinking about the scene where they're around the table and he's like, you know, like you wield it like a kid who's found his dad's gun, right? Like, well, that's that's. I would argue at points that's the the interpretation of scripture through AI, where there's a lot of power there, but there's no responsibility or learning of how to interpret it. So, like, I'll give you an example, man. It was, dude. It was Dupish. All right, like it was Josh Dupeach, one of our our hosts on the show. He had sent me a YouTube video a little while back where it was a guy had three sermons, and he's like, "All right, here's here's the passage. Like the sermons are on the same passage. He goes, "Two of them were made by an AI. One of them was made by a person." Guess which one was the person, okay? And like, okay, as as a as a somebody who teaches the Bible for a living, it was really easy to figure out which one was done by a person, and the the the tell was the AI had the same text, but it completely missed the point of the text. Like it it couldn't apply what a faithful reading of the scripture was, and so it was coming up with applications for the text that had nothing to do with what the text was actually talking about. That's another, I think, problem with it. And yeah, with time, it's only going to get better because more content will be out there for it to engage with. It'll have more trial and error, sure, but this little snapshot in history, it doesn't quite know what it's doing with the text that it can read, and so it will draw conclusions that aren't necessarily based on a proper. We in biblical studies we call this systematic theology, like like a system of theology that takes the whole of the Bible into consideration, rather than just the few verses that you give it, it doesn't know how to do that or do that well, and so it'll misapply stuff all the time. Speaker 1 11:10 So what you're saying is life finds a way. Speaker 2 11:13 What I'm saying is, yeah, and also go to church. That's what I'm saying. Like, be in a small group. Yeah. Speaker 1 11:20 So, what would you recommend someone do? Okay, let's say so. We're can we use AI to help us study the Bible? So, okay, do I do I type in what does the Bible say about stealing? Is that like what what's the process where I can safely use this to help me learn from the Bible? Speaker 2 11:39 Okay, so I'm going to try to be as accommodating as I can. Many of us will choose the easiest, quickest thing, even if it's worse than the right thing. So we will we will choose something potentially being wrong for the sake of convenience. the The easily write, or the easy right thing to do would be to read books. To you know, okay, hey, I want to know what this passage says. Buy a commentary, buy a scholar who has spent years working on studying that world. Speaker 1 12:18 I feel like it's also worth saying. I've recently been drawn to older things, Speaker 2 12:24 yeah, Speaker 1 12:25 and that if the book came out in 2025, it might have been they might have used AI to write that book. Well, I hope Speaker 2 12:33 not. Okay, like that. That's that's the right. The right thing would just be go with knowledge that has been vetted and earned. It's not as quickly accessible. Okay. Now that said, most of us aren't going to do that. Most of us are going to still stick with a Google search. So what I would say to maybe guard yourself is, you know, if you're if you're going to go with AI, whether that be Google, whether that be chat, like whatever, put into it a profile of the kinds of theological boundaries that you want and the kinds of sources that you're looking for, vetted biblical websites, scholars, that kind of thing, so that you're at least reining in its search. Although you should still expect its search to make errors. Speaker 1 13:22 It feels like so. When I was saying, and you just tell it, remember that, and most of them will save it to your profile. Sorry, you're saying so. Most of these sites are pulling from the whole internet to give you answers, right? Speaker 2 13:38 Right. Speaker 1 13:38 So it it just feels like I was always told in high school and college to never cite Wikipedia because anybody can put into it, and you don't know how correct it is because everyone's voice is kind of woven into Wikipedia, and so it's like would I go to Wikipedia for for Bible knowledge. Speaker 2 14:02 Yeah, again, like I think this is no, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, and I think this is the. I don't know if problem the is the word. It's just it is a thing that it is that we are encountering again in this unique snapshot in history in which we live. Speaker 1 14:18 Yeah, Speaker 2 14:18 we confuse access with qualification, right? So, I mean, how many times have you done or heard someone? I'll assume you haven't, where someone is feeling ill, but they don't want to go to a doctor, so they web MD it, right? Okay. Speaker 1 14:38 Yeah. Speaker 2 14:39 Okay. Would anybody say, "Hey, you know what? Because I searched something on WebMD and I've read everything that there is on WebMD about it, I'm now qualified to administer medical care or perform surgery or something like that. I don't know anybody that would say that, right? Right. Even the information is there. We would go. There's something about actually getting your hand. Hands on with it, and taking the years of study that that puts our fears rightly more at ease. the The Bible is the medicinal text of the soul. It should be treated with great care, reverence, patience, accountability, Time and slow study. The in the same way, I would say that me having WebMD does not qualify me to perform surgery. I would say me having Google does not qualify me to understand the Bible. It can tell you, hey, what does the Bible say about blank subject? Like in a quick snapshot, I can give that to you, and it'll probably be accurate. Hey, unless you're telling it like, hey, here's the scholars that I want, and your scholars are hot garbage. Okay, but when it comes to greater depth of study and context, that's where you can run into problems because because that knowledge is given slowly with time and community, and it's not. It can be quickly received, but not quickly earned. Does that make sense? Speaker 1 16:12 I both feel like we could end it right there, or we could talk all day. I mean, I feel like you can't go 10 minutes watching the news without someone bringing up AI again, because it's just such a hot topic, and everyone's got opinions. Is there anything else that that you want to leave us with before we tie this episode up? Speaker 2 16:34 Yeah, I think it's probably good for us as Christians to not adopt a posture of inherent distrust towards development. What I mean by that is, very often when there are advancements in technology, simply because they're new, it's not that we shouldn't ask hard questions of whatever it is that we're given. We should. It's just that people tend to default to this is the end. This thing is the Antichrist in disguise, or whatever, right? Sure. Speaker 1 17:07 All Speaker 2 17:07 right. So, like right now, it's with AI. It's you know, like, are they going to put a chip in us, or are they going to like take it over? Is the Antichrist going to be you know Matrix code, or what? I don't know what they're saying with that. But like, it's AI is the new evil that signals the end of the world and the the failure of humanity and our fall, right? Maybe, but I can also tell you as a student of history that with most advancements that we've had, the complaints that we have about AI have been present as well. So if you know, well, AI is going to make us stupider. AI is going to make us not relying upon our own knowledge. Okay, well, do you know that they said the same thing with the avenue of broadcast, whether that be radio or television? Well, okay, but you know, okay, maybe it wasn't then, but you know, like before that, people were a lot smarter and they and they had a lot more things. Okay, like do you know that when I'm not even kidding you, Mark. When books were invented, books like we could talk about like the the printing press. Well, the printing press is going to make books way too accessible, and it's going to make people stupider. Whereas, like they they won't remember all stuff they used to remember. Okay, Speaker 1 18:16 and we don't. Okay, like before that, like Speaker 2 18:20 you can find ancient Greek writers having that same concern with scrolls and education. So just because something is new doesn't mean it's inherently bad. I think let's also take a pause and go, man. You know, God is on the throne. We are always in His hands, so we're not going to panic right now. Speaker 1 18:36 Yeah, Speaker 2 18:37 it doesn't mean there aren't things to work out with the technology, but it also doesn't mean that we should get in a bunker somewhere and stock up on canned food and arms. Like, I mean, if you if you live in a bunker with canned food and arms, I'm sure you're a great person. But my point is, like, this this is something that we want to keep an eye on and we want to do responsibly. But that doesn't mean that it's necessarily the end of us. Does that make sense? Speaker 1 19:01 Yeah, it does. If you have any thoughts on the topic, we'd love to see them in the comments. Let us know, and if you have ideas for future episodes, email them to podcast@wearethebridge.org. Thanks for watching. Transcribed by https://otter.ai