Transcript
Speaker: This is why your theology of the Holy Spirit, my friends, I don't care if you are Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, Reform, I don't care where you are on the spectrum, you need a strong theology of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker: Hello, friends. Welcome to Verity Podcast. We are in the middle of our Thinking Biblically series. This week, we're talking about using AI in Bible study.
Speaker: Now, there are smarter people than me who've talked about the ethics of AI in general, the usage of artificial intelligence in theological works, and I will have a list of resources for you um on that in the show notes. But in this episode, we're going to specifically talk about using AI in your Bible study time.
Speaker: When I first became acquainted with artificial intelligence, the many different ideations of it, ChatGPT and Claude and all the others, I was kind of confused. I'll be honest. I'm a little bit of a Victorian when it comes to technology, so I have to be caught up what's going on. But At first, when I first heard about it, I didn't understand fully what it was, and I thought it was just another tool, and that's what I was being told. And because of that, um I let it be allowed it to be used in our company for certain artistic things and design products, we'll talk about that at the end, um without really knowing what
Speaker: all the implications or what it was, what where it comes from. Like, i just thought, oh, it's just another tool. But as time went on, I began to study it. I began to understand more of what's behind it, the implications of it, um not just on the environment, which is its own issue, but also on the personal lives of individuals and Christians, the power that it has and how that power um needs to be stewarded for believers to continue moving forward in our present technological age.
Speaker: So after studying it, thinking about it, I realized every woman a theologian needed to have an AI policy because we didn't have any guidelines on what to use AI for and what not to use it for. So earlier this year, I wrote, this is 2026, I wrote an article called Your AI Sermon is Showing that included the AI policy effective for every woman a theologian as of March 2026.
Speaker: So that is linked in the show notes as well, and we'll be pulling a little bit from that article in this episode as I talk to you about this. But the focus of the article was mainly on the usage of AI in writing messages and writing sermons, which is a huge problem right now among Christian influencers, Christian writers, and pastors. It's kind of wild, actually, how many people are using AI to write a spiritual message. And this really concerns me for a variety of reasons that I'm going to share in this episode. But this episode is not directed to pastors and leaders.
Speaker: This is directed to the average Christian who is using ai in Bible study because the same core issues are at play. Now, whenever I bring up my hesitations about AI and ministry or AI and Bible study, the response is always, it's a tool like anything. It can be used for good or for bad. Essentially, what I'm being told is it's morally neutral. And I'll be honest, I don't think it is.
Speaker: There are certain things it can be used for that are morally neutral, but a lot of things that people are using for it today are not. AI is a tool. I think it does have some helpful uses. In fact, it's already integrated into platforms that many of us use, especially if you have a business or a ministry. Places like Canva, the design platform, have AI worked right into it. Even the Logos Bible software program has AI built into it. And so there are functions that it will use, it will go about, again, above my pay grade, that I think are helpful, especially in the realms of data data analysis and SEO. So I'm not opposed to the use of AI for impersonal administrative tasks. But if we're calling it a tool as code for morally neutral, we're not being honest. If we're calling it a tool and we mean it's usable in all settings and for all purposes, that's just undiscerning and irresponsible.
Speaker: And we don't want to be people who are asking forgiveness instead of permission. We want to think about, am I using this in a way that's actually drawing me closer to the Lord? Or am I using this in a way that is actually leading me to not be able to think with a sober mind? And for me, a lot of this conversation really comes back to protecting the Christian mind. Your Christian mind, your ability to reason out of a faith in Christ is so precious. It's so important. There's a reason the Bible says over and over and over to have a sober mind. And when we start to farm our mind out to AI, when it comes to studying the Bible, we are in very dangerous territory because the biggest issue here is that AI does not have the Holy Spirit.
Speaker: AI does not have the Holy Spirit. All it can do is regurgitate information that has already been given to it. And in that sense, it can be very helpful for gathering articles, gathering data points that we can then use to do our study, but we should not be looking to AI as some kind of companion in our study time. And i am learning, this was shocking to me, but I'm learning Many American Christians, I can't speak for the other countries around the world, but I have no doubt it's happening there too, many American Christians at least are actively using AI in their Bible study time.
Speaker: What really brought this to the forefront of my concern is that I found out that there were multiple Bible teachers, female Bible teachers, not just using AI in their Bible study time, but encouraging their following to do so as well. And going beyond that, they weren't just encouraging them to like look stuff up or have it bring applications out of a passage. They were also talking to ChatGPT, like ChatGPT was a person. And having it give them counsel or giving them personal information or or having it assess things about themselves
Speaker: And the first time I saw this, I thought it was satire. I thought it wasn't real, but it was real. And this made me realize, oh, this is a huge, concerning problem in the American church and probably in the global church. It is it is so dangerous because you are now taking biblical information from from a technological resource that is not human, that is distilling human information, but not always doing it accurately.
Speaker: And we are treating this as if this were just completely trustworthy. And not just that, we're personalizing it. Those things should be deeply concerning to us.
Speaker: But why should it concern us? Like, ethically, as a Christian, why why is this a problem? Well, here are some thoughts to think about. Work, especially creative work, is a partnership with God.
Speaker: And we image Him when we do our work well. So whether that is writing an article or the work of Bible study, seeking His face, we're imaging God, we're connecting with with the Lord through that work.
Speaker: And specifically, I applied this to my Christian writing, that if I am using AI in Christian writing, I'm really circumventing my design by God, that I am now farming out my mind, my skill. I'm weakening my writing muscles. I'm weakening my research muscles when I am delegating that to artificial intelligence. So yes, it's a tool, but is this tool compromising humanity or is it preserving it? And the analogy I use for this is that builders use tools. My dad's a builder. um He uses, you know, a saw.
Speaker: He uses a nail gun. Back in the day, you'd have to saw by hand. You'd have to hammer every free nail in. He has a drill. He has a saw. He has a nail gun. He can do things a lot faster.
Speaker: but So is that compromising his humanity to use that tool, or is it still preserving his humanity in the way he images God? It's preserving his humanity. He's still imaging God because he's still the one who is putting the house together. He's still the one who's guiding the design and making sure that it's accurate. It's still coming out of a human mind. It's still aligned in that way. It's still dependent on human innovation, human creativity, and human effort. And so...
Speaker: Building can't be shortcut. And when we write sermons or messages or when we do our Bible study time, we are also building something.
Speaker: When you're studying the Bible, you're learning how to study for yourself. You're learning what God wants to teach you, and you can't shortcut this process. I think the temptation to AI actually comes out of this really efficiency-minded approach to Bible study. I only have 15 minutes. I'm going to read my passage, and I need a quick application. This is also why we only read the passages of the Bible that feel easy to apply. We don't read the minor prophets. We don't read the Psalms.
Speaker: We don't read some of those tough books in the Old Testament because they don't feel like we can just take them out and apply them by our willpower. So it's not a big jump to go from that to using AI in your Bible study, because now you can just get your little little devotional with your little, you know, your three points and you can go about your day. But that's not what Bible study is. It's not about getting quick points for you to then go live out by your sheer willpower and strength. It's about intimacy with God, and you can't have intimacy with God when you now have a robot mediator between you and God.
Speaker: And I can't emphasize how important this is. Now this doesn't mean you can't use AI to find scholarly articles. we That's in our AI policy, that you can use it to acquire articles, to acquire art pieces, to say, give me 10 scholarly article links on this topic, using it like a search engine in that way.
Speaker: That is utilizing it in a way that leads you to human information, human minds. When we have a problem is when we start to replace that research, replace that effort with something that makes things easier, but in so doing, removes the need to depend on the Holy Spirit.
Speaker: So in our AI policy, We have a list of points that we use as the basis or of why the policy looks the way it does.
Speaker: And I want to read you these points. So the first is this. Human beings are made in the image of God. And this image bearing includes the use of our minds, wills, and emotions. The mind, will, and emotions are expressed through language. The written word is powerful, even more when it is the word of God. We should treat the ability to articulate his truths as a gift deserving of reverence, not a tool to be made more efficient.
Speaker: Look, if we're trying to make SEO in an article, search engine optimization better, or you're trying to find a way to track who's coming to your website, or you're trying to write marketing copy for a book that's going out, sure, use AI.
Speaker: It makes it faster. Efficiency fits in that situation. But articulating God's truths, studying them, and then walking them out, this this deserves reverence. It's not supposed to be efficient.
Speaker: It's not supposed to be fast. It's not supposed to be rushed. It's something that's a core part of your life. it's it's like It's like eating a delicious dinner. It's like going out for a very expensive dinner when you if you're a parent and you have a babysitter for three hours. Are you going to rush through that?
Speaker: Or are you going to enjoy that dinner with your spouse and enjoy the intimacy that you have over that meal? That's what reading the Bible is supposed to be like. It's not supposed to be, well, we've got 15 minutes, so let's take three bites, one from each plate, and then let's get going we've got a life to live. No, this is the life.
Speaker: This is your life. This moment in the Word of God in the morning or in the evening or whenever you do it, that's your real life. Don't skip it. The second point is, as heirs with Christ and the crowning glory of God's creation, our image-bearing capacity includes the ability to create. One might say we co-create with God. When we delegate spiritual and artistic creation to a machine, we subvert and invert God's design for humanity.
Speaker: Creation is supposed to come out of the human the way it came out of God. It is a design part of who we are. And when we are delegating that artistic, spiritual creation, the creation of application of a text, we are removing God's spirit and we are moving away from his design.
Speaker: The work of ministry, and I would say just discipleship, is meant to be spirit-led. Artificial intelligence can gather and summarize facts, but it is not led by the spirit. Copying verbiage from AI sources not only atrophies the ability to study, it circumvents the vital process of listening to the spirit of God in our work.
Speaker: Enough said. Writing from AI or posting prompted content as if it was written by a human is deceptive to audiences and congregations who trust the author wrote it themselves. No AI-developed spiritual work should be published at Every Woman a Theologian without admission of AI usage.
Speaker: So this is more for leaders, but this is also important. Say you're on staff at your church and your pastor or worship leader wrote something with AI. I've heard about this being done by worship leaders with songs. um Wrote something with AI and then presents it as if they wrote it themselves.
Speaker: They didn't write it. AI wrote it. And that needs to be honestly admitted. So any spiritual work that has AI involved in the writing of it, this should be admitted because you are not using the sober mind God gave you. You are not using the Holy Spirit. You are using a machine to write for you. I don't even like calling AI writing writing. It's not writing.
Speaker: Writing is a human ability, the communication of words. It is a gift of God who was the Word made flesh, like the original Word, the logos. So AI writing isn't writing. I don't know what else we can call it.
Speaker: Typing? But it's not. And so if we're going to do this, it has to be admitted. Our blanket endorsement of and participation in artificial intelligence encourages other Christians to follow suit, often without discernment or caution. We simply do not know what AI will be capable of in the future, and godly wisdom requires sensitivity to our witness in this area.
Speaker: So what I'm saying in this point is that when we just endorse AI, we celebrate it. I had a message from someone recently who said that their church is like really pro AI to the point they expect and want people using it I have no words. I'm like, how do you even get there? like How does your brain get to that point where you're just like, yes, church, if you're not using this, it has to be it has to be American evangelical mega church stay on the cusp of the trend culture. That's got to be what it is. i can't I literally cannot fathom any other setting in which That's what'll occur.
Speaker: And we don't realize that, like, when we just blanket endorse something and participate and don't give discipleship on it, we are leading people down a path that, like, yeah, now you've got congregants who are sitting at home talking to ChatGPT like it's a person. asking for spiritual counsel because they're in a megachurch and they can't access their pastor. it This is what happens. And it's very concerning. We cannot be blind to where this is taking people. Again, i will say this again, a i has no Holy Spirit.
Speaker: It cannot counsel you. The counselor is the Holy Spirit. Honestly, I think in 10, 12, 15 years, if AI doesn't end the world like people are predicting, that it will become a counterfeit Holy Spirit to many, many people.
Speaker: And this is why your theology, your pneumatology, your theology of the Holy Spirit, my friends, I don't care if you are Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, Reform, I don't care where you are on the spectrum. You need a strong theology of the Holy Spirit because He is the one who is the counselor. He is the convictor. He is the guide. He is the friend.
Speaker: He is closer than a brother. And if you do not have a strong theology of the Holy Spirit, my friend, and do not know how to hear His voice and obey, You're in trouble because this is coming.
Speaker: I'm not trying to scare you, but I am trying to give you a little sense of urgency here that there's a counterfeit Holy Spirit now. There always has been. But now we have one that's just like out there,
Speaker: blatantly sitting there. But if you want someone to give you personal counsel without paying for a therapist and without having to go set an appointment with your pastor or actually invest in friendships where you could get disappointed, you can just talk to this machine and it will give you advice.
Speaker: But that advice will not come from God. It might sound like God in some ways. It might quote some Bible verses to you. But listen, I've used it enough. I'm not one of those people who talks about this without actually using it. I have used it. I've used Claude and ChatGPT mainly. And I've seen the advice it gives. I've seen how it processes verses. I've seen how it summarizes things. And y'all,
Speaker: It's a problem. It's scary. um You can't be going to this as your your counsel, your guidance. You have this, you have the Holy Spirit, and you have your local church. And go back to the denominations episode to see why being in a local church is so important. This is one of the reasons. But we want to shortcut that because it's uncomfortable to have to walk through human relationships and deal with the friction and the difficulty and the hardship and But guess what? That is part of being a believer in Christ.
Speaker: He went through it and he says, you've got to go through it. I love my bride. I want you to do it. All right, so let's talk about in our AI policy what our employees can't use AI for. So there are some things they can use it for. They can use it for like data analysis, SEO, marketing copy, like writing a description for a book. they can We don't usually use it for that. We have someone who writes those for us. But um in a pinch, we can use it for that. We can use it for putting pictures of um book covers
Speaker: onto a picture. We're not adding people into photos. We're not altering images to deceive. But oftentimes our books, when they come in, when our books are coming into Every Woman a Theologian, we will have a delay on shipping. And so sometimes what we'll do is we will overlay a picture of a book onto another image so that we can use it in marketing. That's an example of one way we would use it However, here's what you can't use it for.
Speaker: Writing devotionals, Bible studies curriculum, or speaking outlines. So everything that you're reading that is coming out of our publishing company is written either by me or another author, and they're actually writing it. It's human writing.
Speaker: You can't use it for developing biblical content for use in courses. So same kind of thing. like you can't I can't write Bible in a Year Club, which is our annual course. I can't write that content with AI. Exegeting biblical passages, so asking what they mean, asking for context.
Speaker: Creating videos for social media, so use we use stock photography for that. You can't just use an AI video for that. um Writing biblical content with AI as the source, even if it's rephrased. So we can use it for brainstorming ideas, headlines, titles for things, but you can't actually have it write something for you and then put it into our resources. And then creating art and music for card set studies, book covers, trailers, social media. So we try to use real human music as far as we are able. Sometimes, you know, that gets missed. Stuff is hard to recognize with music sometimes. um But we work really hard to use real artists for these things. So I'm sharing our policy because, one, I think it's helpful for you to know, but two, to give you an example of of all of these things require human effort, human thought, they require um human creativity, and they're able to be shortcut with AI, but that's not something that we are willing to do because we want to preserve on the intention of God in our design.
Speaker: So not all of you are running ministries or publishing houses, so some of these things might feel irrelevant to you. So I want to share with you what I think AI is helpful for in regard to spiritual learning and what it is not helpful for and what you should avoid.
Speaker: So let's start with what you could use it for. Looking up scholarly articles for personal study. So like I said earlier, using it as a search engine. So putting in give me 10 articles about the Canaanite conquest from these perspectives, all from scholarly sources.
Speaker: That can be a great way to find articles. um And then you read those articles yourself that are written by humans, and you synthesize that information, and you take that away into your study. This is kind of what the AI in the Logos Bible Software is doing. It's kind of helping with synthesizing the information and bringing it together.
Speaker: i Finding links to theology content. So that's kind of what I just said, but you know maybe you're looking for, I'm looking for this particular content on this topic. Here's the topic. Here's what I'm looking for. But then you go to that author or that book or that article and you do the research.
Speaker: Honestly, a lot of times I still use Google for this. um I go to openbible.org. I think it's openbible.org, which lists out verses by topic. It's one of my favorite websites. They do such a good job in listing verses by topic. So I use it often just to find verses topic.
Speaker: on specific topics, and I'll tell you that I have compared ChatGPT and OpenBible side-by-side on pulling verses by topic, and OpenBible is far better, probably because a human compiled it. ChatGPT will pull verses that are adjacent but not actually relevant. Like, it can't recognize, unless you have multiple prompts, and even then it still misses a lot of times, um on the topic.
Speaker: Say you're like, i want the love of God. It'll bring up a bunch of references, but then it might bring up a bunch about loving others instead of like the love of God. So you have to prompt it and guide it. And it's so much prompting that Open Bible and other resources like Blue Letter Bible have a stronger resource base that is actually compiled in a relevant way. Making lists of books for use in study or, you know, listing out titles, coming up with um titles for things. that it We have had a lot of success using it for that kind of a thing. Again, it's pulling lists that I can then double check or I can look up if it's giving me a list of books. I would like a list of books about the Trinity from a Protestant perspective.
Speaker: Okay, it can do that for me. um But then I have to go and check each one to see that it actually understood what I meant by Trinity and Protestant, you know? And so that's the thing is sometimes you'll get articles pulled up by AI that are Mormon, Jehovah's Witness.
Speaker: So you have to be very clear. It must come from a Protestant Christian perspective or a Catholic perspective or whatever in order to get a Trinitarian resource. So sometimes it's up to the prompt to to decide what you're getting back. And a lot of people who are pro-AI will say this. um And it's like, okay, but that's not like...
Speaker: That's not an excuse because now you're saying that it's user error, but the user is is asking AI for a solution because they don't know. So now it's the blind leading the blind. So this is why, again, please, my friends, use books, use articles, start there. And if you're like, well, Felicia, I can't afford a library like this. Number one, a lot of these books were thrifted over time.
Speaker: But the other thing is you can use interlibrary loan and you can get commentaries from really anywhere in your state. I get commentaries from university libraries downstate. I live in a very rural area area of Michigan and all the universities are downstate, but I can get books from those libraries through interlibrary loan. And so you can do this. Almost every state, if not every state in America has this option. I'm sure overseas, you guys have this option in some way, shape, or form. You probably have even prettier, bigger libraries that are walking distance away. We don't, but you can get these items. You can get commentaries in. And this is what I'd recommend because if you're sitting doing your Bible study in the morning with your phone out, my friend, it is hard to get a lot out of Scripture with your phone in your hand.
Speaker: It really is. And I'm not, people are always worried about shaming. Oh, you're making people feel shame. Well, I'm not trying to make you feel shame, but if you do feel a little shame and it drives you to read your physical Bible instead of your phone, I wouldn't be sorry. Because people read the Bible without their phones for, you know,
Speaker: 1,999 years. hundred and ninety-nine yearss Well, they didn't have Bibles. So let's years, approximately. um so we we are in a position where we have become entitled to having our phones present because it's convenient for us, and we don't want to be inconvenienced, and we don't want to make the time.
Speaker: No one's saying you have to study the Bible for an hour every morning. I don't. But what I am saying is this idea that we need to have our phones in our hands in order to get the most of the Bible. If you went to a physical Bible,
Speaker: for a month and left your phone in another room, I bet by the end of that month, you would truly have a transformed time with the Lord. That would be marked by more intimacy with him.
Speaker: So here's what I don't recommend using AI for. Looking up context of passages like you would in a commentary. i don't have a commentary on my desk right now, but if I did, I would show you that in a commentary, you can look up the passage and verse you're studying, and it will give you a scholarly context on that passage. One of my favorites is the IVP Old Testament contextual commentary, cultural commentary. um There's a New Testament one, too.
Speaker: i use these when I know what would have been happening culturally at that time. I have the Africa Bible commentary, multiple scholars contributed to that, the Baker Bible commentary, the Moody Bible commentary, all whole Bible commentaries. And you can get them for used on eBay for between $20 and $50.
Speaker: I would so encourage you to just get one of these instead of looking up context in chat GPT because it's going to be more accurate and you can trust that it's coming from a scholarly source.
Speaker: Secondly, i would not use AI for summarizing a passage into points or application. Application is meant to come from observation of the text, what's going on, interpretation, so rightly interpreting it, which you need the Holy Spirit to do,
Speaker: and then taking the principle that you learn in bridging that to today. Then you apply it. If you have ChatGPT do this, it's skipping the observation, the interpretation, it has no Holy Spirit, and now it's telling you how to apply it.
Speaker: Please, please do not use ChatGPT to create points to apply out of a text. Third, I would not use AI for gathering theological background or content on a passage. So there's contextual, like historical context, but there's also theological background, theological points.
Speaker: And while it can give you some basic summaries of different theological figures and what was happening, it's a lot like Wikipedia. Remember back in the day, those of you who are millennial, when we were in college, our professors were saying, do not use Wikipedia as a source.
Speaker: Now we have to say, do not use the little AI summary at the top of your Google search as a source. That is not a trustworthy source. You need to do the work.
Speaker: Get the books. Get the articles. Don't use ChatGPT. That's my next point. This is so important, my friends. Do not talk to ChatGPT like a person or ask it for spiritual advice.
Speaker: I understand if you feel lonely, and I understand if you feel like you're struggling to make connections or friendships, or maybe you're struggling to find a local church right now, and we are so happy to help you. My email inbox this morning, I was up at 6.30 in the morning answering emails from people in this situation. I personally answer these with my assistant.
Speaker: I care about people finding a local church for this reason. We are not meant to do faith alone. Christianity is not meant to be lived outside a local church. It cannot go on long-term that way. And ChatGPT cannot step into this void for you.
Speaker: You need humans. You need pastors. You need leaders. You need women who are strong in the Lord, who can mentor you, who can pray with you. You need it. And the enemy wants you to think you don't.
Speaker: He wants you to think you can do it on your own with a robot. but you can't. Your soul is not meant for this. Your soul is meant for communion with other human souls who love Jesus.
Speaker: And that means that you're going to have to be willing to go through tough relational things. You're going to have to be okay with being hurt. Like C.S. Lewis said, yes, you can shut yourself off from love. You can lock yourself up in a coffin, but you're going to die there. You're going to die there alone, spiritually and emotionally.
Speaker: Then the way out is to risk love. That is what it looks like to be in the church. Do not use ChatGPT for spiritual advice. It has no Holy Spirit. It is not a trustworthy guide.
Speaker: And it will lead you astray. It will at least lead you into passivity. And finally, don't use AI for any spiritual content that would be used to disciple other people. If you're a leader in your church and you have been using it to write Bible studies, I understand you have a lot on your plate.
Speaker: It feels just overwhelming. But there are certain things you can use it for without using it for this. Use it to, you know, I don't like how it designs things. It all looks the same.
Speaker: I'm sure you have a staff graphic designer who could do something or some, you know, teenager in the church who wants to try to use their skills. So please look at human possibilities first. But there's other things you can use it for that have no spiritual implication that are important.
Speaker: You know, maybe, i don't know, compiling up, you know, putting together your Excel sheet of all the ladies signed up for your study and and organizing it for you. Like, use it for that. But don't use it to write your Bible study or to write a devotional or to summarize biblical content or to write your teaching outline. Don't use it for that.
Speaker: Because when we do that, when we allow it to speak into the lives of people, we are shortcutting what the Holy Spirit wanted to do through us and how He wanted to use us. This is not information gathering. It's not information sharing.
Speaker: When I sit here and do this podcast with you, I'm not sitting here going, okay, I have all the information and I just have to like get this information into people's ears. No, when I sit here in my office alone, I know that on the other side of this camera, there are individual souls that I am speaking to that I am responsible for how I discipled them and where I pointed them. This is no small thing. I answer to God for this. So if I were to take AI, shortcut that process, and then sit here and send people down a path that was written by a robot, I would answer to God for that. And so any leaders who are listening to this, this is a weighty thing. This is a big responsibility. And honestly, woe on any pastor who is using AI to write his sermons.
Speaker: You need to sit down and think about how you're excusing this because this is not okay. There are sheep. There are Christians who are sick and injured and stray and lost, and they're supposed to be hearing from the Holy Spirit.
Speaker: and if This is not about just more information and Bible facts being stuffed into their brains. It's about the Holy Spirit speaking to them. And when you shortcut that, what you do is you you shortcut what the Holy Spirit wanted to do. And that is a very dangerous place to be, in my opinion.
Speaker: So now you know, what I don't recommend using AI for and what I do recommend using it for. The AI policy is linked. You can read through it. All of this is there. You can read through, um you know, what we do use it for, what we don't use it for. um But and some of you, you might even be more on the extreme end of like no AI whatsoever. You might even think I'm giving too many concessions here. um That's a valid, valid disagreement.
Speaker: My biggest point is this. Bible study is meant to be intimacy with God. We live in the information age, so people don't view it as intimacy with God. They view it as facts about God that I then take and I try to live out.
Speaker: But that's not the Christian life, is it? The Christian life is meant to be ah life lived in an adventure with God, making every decision out of affection for Him and out of His affection for us.
Speaker: And that is only developed by repeat exposure to the Word of God with no mediator. And I mean the mediator that we have is Jesus Christ. But sticking someone in between us because we don't feel capable of studying the Bible on our own, I'm not smart enough, I can't do it— God will equip you.
Speaker: And we have so many resources to equip you. That's the whole point of every woman a theologian, that you are a theologian. You are a student of the heart of God, which is how I define it. And that only grows when you are willing to remove the crutches and start taking some little baby steps towards confidence in the Bible.
Speaker: We have a choice in front of us to to choose what's easy and efficient or to choose what will actually result in intimacy with God. Now, if you are looking for resources on this, I'm going to put some in the show notes for you, some things to watch and read to consider about AI in general.
Speaker: Also, our AI policy is there. If you are looking for a Bible study, if you're like, I want to study the Bible, but I just don't feel equipped, we have five different verse-by-verse studies in Every Woman a Theologian's Shop. We have Galatians, 1st through 3rd John, Amos and Micah, Leviticus and Revelation. If you're just starting out, I'd recommend 1st through 3rd John or Galatians. They're short. They're walking through the epistles verse by verse. So you're learning how to study the Bible verse by verse in its context, human-written, written by me, but it's not too much at once.
Speaker: Now, if you're a more advanced Bible student, you want to dive into Leviticus or Revelation. Those are our two most popular studies. And they're the same structure, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. There's no time limit. It's not eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks. It's however long you want to take. And you can do them as a group or you can do them individually. So that's some place to look if you have a place you want to start and you just need some structure without having to seek that extra context out on your own.
Speaker: I believe in you. You are capable of studying the Bible on your own. Not just because you're smart, and I believe you are, but also because if you're a Christian, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit who's going to help you.
Speaker: And that's a really exciting reality in which to live. Thank you for listening to Verity Podcast. I'll see you next time in our Thinking Biblically series.
