Rudy Vazquez had a question about Isaiah, and he didn’t take it to his minister.
He’s a construction worker in Jacksonville, Florida. During worship he heard a passage from Isaiah read and couldn’t make sense of it. He told NPR he’d held back from asking his minister because of how earlier questions had gone. He never felt he got a real answer. So he opened an AI chatbot and asked it to explain Isaiah 5.1
He has plenty of company. OpenAI says ChatGPT now gets about 70 million religion-related questions a week, and about half of the Christian ones are people trying to understand a Bible passage.2 Barna found that roughly four in ten practicing Christians say AI has helped them with Bible study or prayer.3 Barna also noted that most of them are working this out with little help from their ministers.
I use AI every day in my own study, so I’m not here to scold anyone for wanting to understand their Bible. That hunger is a good thing. What bothers me is the question underneath it. Why was a chatbot easier to approach than his preacher?
A Man in a Chariot
Luke tells us about another man reading Isaiah. He was an Ethiopian official who managed the queen’s treasury, and he was riding home from worship in Jerusalem with the scroll open in his lap.
The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.” When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him, Acts 8:29-31.
Look at what he already had. He had the text. He had a sincere heart, and he’d just traveled hundreds of miles to worship. What he was missing was a person, and God sent him one: a preacher running down a desert road.
Philip climbed up and sat down. Then, beginning with that Scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus, Acts 8:35. A few miles later there was water, a baptism, and a man who went on his way rejoicing, Acts 8:39.
Can a machine explain a passage? Often it can, and sometimes it does it well. But it can’t sit beside you. It doesn’t know your name. It won’t notice you’ve missed two Sundays and call to check on you. It won’t stand in the water with you.
A Word to Shepherds
This part stings for those of us who preach. Barna found that about a third of practicing Christians want their pastors to help them think through AI. Only 12% of pastors say they’re comfortable teaching on it.4
Peter told the elders to shepherd God’s flock among you, 1 Peter 5:2. Among you means close enough to be asked. Hebrews says those leaders keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, Hebrews 13:17. You can’t keep watch over sheep you’re not connected to.
So we need to teach on this, even if we feel behind. We should be honest that we use these tools and show people how we check them. Most of all, we need to be easy to approach. Am I? When someone brings me a question I can’t answer on the spot, do I admit it and go dig, or do I brush it off? Have I ever made someone feel foolish for asking? Maybe we need to stand at the door a little longer after services.
A Word to the Flock
Now a word to everyone else in the pew. Your elders and your preacher want your questions. That’s part of why we’re there. God gave the church evangelists, pastors, and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of ministry, Ephesians 4:11-12. Equipping happens up close.
Here’s the guidance I’d give you if you asked me.
Use it like a reference book, not a counselor. It’s handy for background, context, word meanings, and cross-references, the same jobs a Bible dictionary or concordance does. It shouldn’t be the voice that tells you what to do with your marriage or your guilt.
Keep your Bible open beside it. These tools can misquote a verse or cite one that says something else. Some will even make up a reference that sounds right. The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so, Acts 17:11, and they were checking an apostle. Read every passage AI gives you in your Bible before you trust it.
Know whose theology it learned. It was trained on everything people have written, so it usually repeats the majority view. Ask it about baptism, worship, or how a person is saved, and you may get common denominational teaching presented as settled fact. Ask it what the text says before you ask what everyone thinks.
Remember it’s built to agree with you. It’s designed to please the person typing. The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, Proverbs 27:6, and a chatbot won’t wound you. It won’t tell you that you’re wrong about the very thing you most need to hear you’re wrong about. Paul warned about people who collect teachers who say what they want to hear, 2 Timothy 4:3. You can now do that with an app on your phone.
Take the heavy things to people. Sin you keep falling into, doubt, grief, a marriage in trouble: confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, James 5:16. That verse needs a person in the room. Pray in your own words, too, because prayer is a child talking to his Father. And don’t type anything into a chat window you wouldn’t want read back to you someday.
You can watch a ten-minute video on replacing a water heater, and plenty of people do. But when a neighbor who has put in thirty of them walks through your door, the job goes differently. He spots the corroded fitting you’d have missed. He tells you what the video left out. And he stays until the hot water runs.
Use the tools if they help you. Just don’t let a screen take the seat God meant for a person.
So What About You?
Is there a passage that’s been bothering you? Who in your congregation could you ask about it this week? What has kept you from asking? And if you’re one of the people others ought to be coming to, are they?
The Ethiopian had the words of Isaiah in his lap, and God still sent Philip to sit with him.
From Fear to Faith | fromfearto.faith
NPR, Jason DeRose, “A surprising number of Americans use AI for spiritual reasons. Here’s what they told us,” September 2026.
https://www.npr.org/2026/09/21/nx-s1-5944346/a-surprising-number-of-americans-use-ai-for-spiritual-reasons-heres-what-they-told-us
Baptist News Global, “Half of Christian questions on ChatGPT are attempts to understand the Bible.”
https://baptistnews.com/article/half-of-christian-questions-on-chatgpt-are-attempts-to-understand-the-bible/
Barna Group / Gloo, “AI is Becoming a Spiritual Authority in Americans’ Lives, New Research Reveals,” February 2026.
https://gloo.com/press/releases/ai-is-becoming-a-spiritual-authority-in-americans-lives-new-research-reveals
ibid.