The problems with promoting Ai generated Bible teaching
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Paired with the ability to summarize I find it useful. But I can understand that perspective.
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The ability to summarize is my favorite Logos feature that Accordance doesn't have.
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And watch TV too!
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I just quoted Yasmin's great diagram. So much for quotes.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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But now, they're just expanding searches, right?
Alternatively, users recognize that the option to search only one's library or to search the entire catalogue is acceptable as an option. Only having the option to search the entire catalogue would not be.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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That'd be a good secular argument.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I actually think that the Search All could be useful for some applications.... Having the ability to see what resources are available that are not currently in my library for a particular subject may be beneficial. (Especially if the search results are more accurate than some of the results we get on the Website search. Also, while I understand it could be viewed as force-fed advertising, I can look past it, because I am pretty disciplined with my purchases. It could be an issue for those who struggle maintaining a Logos budget.)
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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It never really occurred to me to use summarization for Bible passages and chapters, even though you can. I agree with you that this is something the exegete should be doing themselves. It's an important part of the bible study process.
However, I do find it extremely helpful to summarize chapters and subsections of books and of dictionary articles.
So for the first time, I actually used the Summarize feature to summarize passages within the Bible itself. I did Isaiah 66 in the NRSV. It's actually surprisingly good for a machine, especially since this chapter is mostly poetry with a lot of symbolism. It did better with the whole chapter than with just individually pericopes within the chapter:
Isa 66 (Whole Chapter)
The text emphasizes that true worship of God is not about physical sacrifices but about humility and reverence for His word. The Lord declares that He does not need a house built by humans, as everything belongs to Him. He looks favorably upon those who are humble and contrite in spirit. The text criticizes those who perform rituals without genuine faith, equating their actions to heinous acts. It assures that those who reject God's people will face shame, while the Lord will bring retribution to His enemies. The passage also speaks of the miraculous birth of Zion's children, symbolizing hope and restoration. God promises comfort and prosperity to Jerusalem, likening His care to that of a mother. The text concludes with a vision of judgment, where the Lord will come in fire to execute justice against the wicked. It highlights the gathering of nations to witness God's glory and the establishment of a new order where worship will be universal. Ultimately, it warns of the eternal consequences for those who rebel against God.
I agree with you that a preacher/teacher shouldn't rely on these summaries in teaching or sermon prep. But this is a great way to test your understanding of the passage after you've read it yourself. Using this to prepare sermons or bible studies I think would be too tempting for most, I myself would avoid using this summary if I were actually teaching this.
@Mark Barnes (Logos) Is this above summary using commentaries to help summarize the passage or is the AI language model able to handle this all on its own?
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"WHAT ARE THOSE MINISTERS TO DO who have a slender apparatus? By a slender apparatus I mean that they have few books, and little or no means wherewith to purchase more. This is a state of things which ought not to exist in any case."
~ Charles Spurgeon
Though I am not vocationally a minister, I have used this quote with my wife on a few too many occasions. Particularly when she points out that it is not just Logos, but Kindle, and dead tree editions. 🙄
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Sounds like many independent Baptists I know.
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Yet, I have know of many preachers that had nothing more than their bible and preached for many years with that being their only source. One such person told me, "The bible sheds a lot of light on man's writings, if you understand it."
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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Please don’t talk to my wife about my book budget!!! LOL
Just joking of course!
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Hmm this thread has taken a decidedly Western and modern turn. For how long and is how broad a geographic area did preachers have access only to a lectionary or a Bible - either of which might be solely by memory not in physical form? Have we gone too far in equating sermon material with book learning rather that wisdom grown within serious spiritual formation? Have you forgotten the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church, a pietist church that uses lay preachers - the two I knew best were a farmer and a carpenter.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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You make a good point MJ. I think the difference is the faith community in which and from which the Gospel is lived and preached.
I recently left a church where a pastor committed suicide because he believed taking his anti-depressants revealed a lack of faith in God's ability to heal him. None of the pastors had any formal theological training. They all believed the KJV was the only inspired translation, and each had a strong anti-intellectual bias.1 -
The question to me is not theological training but rather being raised up out of a community by God through the gift of a charism. The ministers and priests that I admire have two traits in common:
- When they announced their vocation, their friends and family response was "of course" or "what took you so long to recognize"
- When practicing their vocation, their views change as they counsel their flock … sometimes even requiring a change in denomination.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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The concern I have for AI-generated sermons etc is people will quit going to the Lord and get from him what people need to hear. AI can spit out doctrinally pure theology, but that is death if God is not involved. That said, when God gives you something and you need to pull together references and whatnot that you have in mind quickly, AI is superb at doing that. I do it all the time. Unfortunately, if someone would look at my notes, they would have a hard time figuring out what I am saying because they are scattered and full of redundancy. AI does a superb job of sorting out my notes and putting them in a logical order. The point of concern is to not start thinking AI is God's voice. God can use AI to do all sorts of great things to help, but it is never a replacement for hearing from God, and that is where the danger is.
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My first meaningful experience with AI was when, a number of years back, I was writing a paper on the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospel of John, and my precocious 9-year old daughter asked if she could help. She'd been learning about doing "research" in school, and was convinced she could help me identify important contributions. I handed her several hundred printed pages of downloaded PDFs, exported ebook chapters, etc., and she got to work.
About a week later she came back with the pile of papers and a big smile, announcing she had completed the task. I started thumbing through it, and was astounded at how smartly she had identified highly useful material. It wasn't perfect - she was 9 after all! - but she had devised a process for flagging things that seemed to be important, and was clever enough to hand me a set of suggestions that I could then cull in a matter of minutes instead of hours. Quite a few of those suggestions made it into the final paper, after I had gone through the prioritized materials myself and integrated them.
If you cut that week's worth of processing time down to a few seconds, that's basically what generative AI is. It offers the writer not a seasoned and trustworthy research assistant, but an extraordinarily productive junior assistant who can save you tons of time, and even come up with unexpected but useful ideas, but who nonetheless understand things on about the level of a cute 9-year old.
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The portions of this court order dealing with the "Hancock Declaration" illustrate my concern about the use of the current generation of AI in research, and especially in drafting sermons. From the beginning of the first full paragraph on page 8:
"The irony. Professor Hancock, a credentialed expert on the dangers of AI and misinformation, has fallen victim to the siren call of relying too heavily on AI—in a case that revolves around the dangers of AI, no less. …"
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hmmm… have we forgotten the words of Jesus Himself.. “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” - John 12:48. While we may read the books of men, there is only one book that we really need to know… that book, is the bible.
The use of AI, the use of commentaries, the use of other men's writings should only serve the purpose of helping us to understand the one book whereby salvation is promised, the bible. No other book, no AI can promise such as the bible promises. They are only tools to help us in our understanding of the only true word from God, the bible.
When we start depending on other men's writings, or AI then we have chosen to make the bible void of it's promises and turned our attention to the following of mere men and not the words of God.
IMHO…
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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That's an interesting document! However, I think it merits to quote the following paragraph as well (I put the most relevant parts in bold):
To be clear,the Court does not fault Professor Hancock for using AI for research purposes.AI, in many ways, has the potential to revolutionize legal practice for the better. See Damien Riehl, AI + MSBA: Building Minnesota’s Legal Future, 81-Oct. Bench & Bar of Minn. 26, 30–31 (2024) (describing the Minnesota State Bar Association’s efforts to explore how AI can improve access to justice and the quality of legal representation). Butwhen attorneys and experts abdicate their independent judgment and critical thinking skills in favor of ready-made, AI-generated answers, the quality of our legal profession and the Court’s decisional process suffer.The Court thus adds its voice to a growing chorus of courts around the country declaring the same message: verify AI-generated content in legal submissions!Have joy in the Lord!
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You wouldn't have your English Bible if not for men and women who relied on "other men's writings." I agree we need to approach the use of AI with care, but the same is true of any powerful tool.
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That's fair, and just to be clear, I don't believe that all use of AI is inappropriate. My point is that the technology is less mature and reliable than much of the current hype would suggest - enough so that people who should know better are getting tripped up even in situations where they are fully aware that the stakes are high. I think this legal case is a great example of those dangers. (I also believe the judge was not so much recommending the use of AI as being very careful to clarify exactly what he was censuring, which was filing with the court materials that Professor Hancock had not personally verified.)
It makes perfect sense to me that FaithLife would begin incorporating AI into the Logos platform. I'm just unsettled by how quickly and thoroughly they jumped on the bandwagon and by the they way they seem to be applying it.
I don't want to find myself in Professor Hancock's position. But I know I'm not smarter than he is, and that I know less about AI than he does.
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Ai is not just being used to assist Pastors in sermon prep. It will be replacing pastors completely.
There are already AI pastors which are intended to lead you in spiritual disciplines including prayer.
There are already real Pastors that are using AI models to “minister” to their congregations. I could post links but it is easy enough to find in search.
Would any of you feel that God would answer prayers for you given by AI? And if not, why are many pastors already utilizing these apps to replace true Biblical ministry?
The Bible gives qualifications for those who would become ministers. They are to have relationships with wives and children, and to be successful in those human relationships. They also have to have good reputations in and outside of the church.
AI by definition will never meet any of these qualifications because they all presume the minister is a real human.
I personally do not care if AI was trained on your pastors sermons. Once it becomes a spiritual guide or prayer partner, it has crossed Biblical lines into the realm of idolatry.
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I too have no issue if others who like AI. But I suspect a congregation learning a sermon was largely AI, would deflate the speaker's credibility (not to mention 'why are paying this guy').
My own use, as earlier, is read the author. He/she's already layers of digestion with AI another.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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This is true and while I believe there are concerns with AI - I'm not sure that the "AI Sermons" would be the top of my list - Why? I have known and seen the preaching of another person's sermon (whether historical preacher like Spurgeon, popular preacher or when a pastor visited a conference and preached a message from the conference to the congregation….
Is an AI sermon much different than that type of "Sermon Prep" or the Sermon websites and IIRC Sermon subscription services?
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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Well, good question. I just finished my book on the cOC's development. One of the arguments they got into, was whether the Holy Spirit was personally indwelled vs the Bible itself. I'd assume ones beliefs would impact an AI sermon vs a preacher's (as to whether any difference).
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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That's a way to think about it as well…. I was commenting more towards the fact that the pastor/preacher that relies on the sermons of others - whether AI or another preacher was not practicing actual 'Sermon Prep' but more rehearsing a speech prepared for them…
Logos 10 - OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows 11, Android 16 & Android 14
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I don't think that's any better. (Or at least not much better - I do trust Spurgeon a bit more than I do GPT-4.) I can see a legitimate use for sermon outline books as a tool to help a very inexperienced preacher learn how to get started, or as a quick way to see how someone else approaches a topic. But any preacher who uses someone else's sermon as a crutch to avoid the hard work of preparing their own message loses all credibility with me.
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I have known and seen the preaching of another person's sermon
There are multiple denominations with books of approved sermons to be read in services where no qualified preacher is available.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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