“Can the BMA Seminary provide pastors with guidance on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially for sermon preparation?” Someone recently asked me that question and I would like to respond with a few thoughts.
During the past year or so, members of the seminary’s faculty have actively sought to identify acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI. We identified two basic types of AI. First, is “Assistive AI” that assists an individual. This seems to be acceptable. It is commonly used in grammar check programs that highlight misspelled words, incomplete sentences, etc. Although not everyone is bothered by poor grammar, no one is bothered by proper grammar. So, running a sermon, book review, or research paper through a program that assists the writer in finding grammatical errors to be corrected is acceptable.
AI may also be acceptable in helping preachers find Bible passages. For example, asking your computer or phone, “What Bible verse says, ‘For God so loved the world?’” should result in identifying John 3:16. This can be a quick and helpful way to find forgotten verses. Also, using AI to research the background of a biblical text or the meaning of biblical terms may be acceptable for assisting in sermon preparation.
Second, is “Generative” AI that creates a sermon or paper for an individual. This seems to be unacceptable when it comes to preparing sermons or school assignments. Generative AI does more than assist the writer, it does all the work for him. Why is this unacceptable? There are ethical, cognitive, and biblical reasons to consider.
Ethical Reasons
Ethically, think about the “byline” of a research paper. Basic content of such a paper’s title page typically includes the paper’s title, name of the course, the paper’s deadline for being submitted, and a byline that declares who conducted the research and authored the paper. Professors appropriately presume that everything in a paper “by Philip Attebery” has been researched and written (i.e., generated) by him and not generated by AI or another author. Of course, a research paper “by Philip Attebery” likely includes quotations or ideas he found from other authors or perhaps content produced by Generative AI. In such cases, those quotations should be properly cited in footnotes or endnotes as belonging originally to another author or source. If I submit a paper that is generated by AI or copied from another author, I cannot honestly declare it was written “by Philip Attebery.”
Similarly, church bulletins often include an order of service to provide guidance during their assembled times of worship. Basic content of such an order often includes identifying songs, times for prayer, and who is to present the sermon. Although not every church has such bulletins, congregants typically assume that Philip Attebery has researched and prepared a sermon presented “by Philip Attebery.” In contrast, if I present a sermon generated by AI or copied from another preacher, I cannot honestly declare that I delivered a sermon prepared “by Philip Attebery.”
Biblical Reasons
Biblically, 2 Timothy 2:15 records the apostle Paul’s words to Timothy, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” These instructions should apply to any preacher or presenter of God’s Word.
Paul wrote the word “study” as a command. The word means to be diligent, eager, and to exert oneself. This command alone renders the use of generative AI in sermon preparation unacceptable. Can a preacher who uses AI to generate his sermons honestly say he has diligently exerted himself in sermon preparation? I think not.
Two results should come from diligent study. First, a preacher, should “shew” or present “thyself approved unto God.” A congregation of listeners may accept AI-generated sermons, but God is the ultimate determiner of what is acceptable. Second Timothy 2:15 makes it clear that God desires to accept the man who has diligently exerted himself. Can a preacher honestly say that he has shown himself to be a diligent student, of whom God approves, by using AI to generate sermons? I think not.
The second result of diligent study is to be an unashamed worker who rightly divides the Word of Truth. The word “workman” indicates labor and work! The word “unashamed” implies that there is no need to be ashamed. The phrase “rightly dividing” means to handle something correctly and to cut straight. Can a preacher honestly say that he has worked hard, correctly handled God’s Word, and has no reason to be ashamed by using AI to generate sermons? I think not.
Cognitive Reasons
Cognitively, the use of AI may cause significant and long-term decrease in a person’s brain function. Evidence for such a statement can be found in the June 2025 report entitled, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. The report includes the findings of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the educational impact of Large Language Model (LLM) AI. LLM AI can recognize and create written text. In other words, it can write a sermon or research paper.
According to the report’s abstract, the results of the researchers’ study “demonstrate the pressing matter of a likely decrease in learning skills . . . The use of LLM had a measurable impact on participants, and while the benefits were initially apparent, as we demonstrated over the course of 4 months, the LLM group’s participants performed worse than their counterparts” who did not use AI.
According to the MIT report, users of AI are 60% more productive overall; however, their “cognitive load” needed for real learning is reduced by 32%. The MIT study concerned educational learning. Pastors are expected to learn biblical truths and content as they prepare sermons.
I mentioned earlier in this blog that using AI to help preachers find Bible passages, etc. is acceptable. However, according to the MIT report, “the reliance on search engines for information retrieval, known as the “Google Effect,” can shift cognitive efforts from information retention to more externalized memory processes . . . Namely, as users increasingly depend on search engines for fact-checking and accessing information, their ability to remember specific content may decline, although they retain a strong recall of how and where to find it.” Before consulting the MIT report, I had already determined to mention in this blog that decreasing memory is likely enhanced by repeatedly using search engines to provide information rather than committing some things to memory. This can potentially be a problem. For example, hiding God’s Word in your heart helps you avoid sin, not simply having quick access to His Word.
Conclusion
Those currently using AI to generate sermons should consider the findings and questions asked above. It is incredibly difficult to see how a preacher can obey the command and attain the status required of 2 Timothy 2:15 if using AI to generate sermons. Having served as a bi-vocational pastor at times during my ministry, I can understand the temptation to use helps in generating sermons. In the past, some pastors have simply plagiarized “their” sermons by using messages discovered on the Internet, in a book, or other formats. Today, using generative AI may appear to remove a bit of stigma because it does not directly copy another preacher’s message. However, it clearly violates the ethical and biblical guidance presented in this blog.
Cognitively, the use of AI may cause a significant and long-term decrease in a person’s brain function. Consider the following quotation from the abstract of a June 2025 report entitled, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task, where researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) determined that “As the educational impact of LLM [Large Language Model: a type of AI capable of recognizing and creating written text] use only begins to settle with the general population, in this study we demonstrate the pressing matter of a likely decrease in learning skills based on the results of our study. The use of LLM had a measurable impact on participants, and while the benefits were initially apparent, as we demonstrated over the course of 4 months, the LLM group’s participants performed worse than their counterparts in the Brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic, scoring.”
According to the MIT report, users of AI are 60% more productive overall; however, their “cognitive load” needed for real learning is reduced by 32%. The MIT study concerned educational learning. Pastors are expected to learn biblical truths and content as they prepare sermons.
I mentioned earlier in this blog that using AI to help preachers find Bible passages, etc. is acceptable. However, according to the MIT report, “the reliance on search engines for information retrieval, known as the “Google Effect,” can shift cognitive efforts from information retention to more externalized memory processes . . . Namely, as users increasingly depend on search engines for fact-checking and accessing information, their ability to remember specific content may decline, although they retain a strong recall of how and where to find it.” Before consulting the MIT report, I had already determined to mention in this blog that decreasing memory is likely enhanced by repeatedly deciding “Google that” rather than commit some things to memory. This can potentially be a problem. For example, hiding God’s Word in your heart helps you avoid sin, not simply having quick access to His Word.