Artificial intelligence (AI) has fast become part of everyday life. Not only with ChatGBT but also in our kettles and hoovers. (If you don’t have a hoover with AI you are missing out. Although, it could be that soon we will be killed by our hoovers!) AI now shapes how people write, search, plan, and increasingly how they reflect, make decisions, and seek wisdom and reassurance. For the church, this is not simply a technical development but a formative one that should be worrying. The question discipleship must ask is not whether AI works, but what kind of people it is quietly helping us become.
Christian discipleship has always been concerned with formation rather than information. Jesus does not invite people to master knowledge but to follow him, to learn a way of life shaped by obedience, love, and faithfulness. This is formation over information. Whenever new technology enters the world the job of discernment is not optional but essential. Historically there has been an issue for the church often demonising new technology’s. A good example would be the church organ which at first for many was seen as the devil entering church, later it became the guitar or the projector screen. We still talk about a ‘real’ Bible over a Bible app as if paper is the true word of God. Which I must admit I do myself.
Scripture repeatedly warns us that what we give ourselves to will, in time, shape us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). So we must ask ourselves this question of what is forming our hearts.
A discipleship rule of thumb
AI serves discipleship when it supports learning without replacing listening, when it strengthens community rather than substituting for it, and when it increases capacity for faithfulness, love, and service. It becomes spiritually harmful when it replaces prayer with productivity, community with simulation, and obedience with affirmation. In those moments, the issue is not technology but formation.
The central discipleship question remains unchanged. Who or what is teaching us how to live like Jesus?
1. The place of AI in discipleship
Discipleship exists to help people grow in love for God and neighbour, to learn attentiveness to the Spirit, and to practise obedience in the ordinary. Discipleship is about helping us to love and obey God with our head, heart and hands. Any technology that assists those ends may be received with gratitude, but only as a servant rather than a guide. AI can support learning in real ways. It can help people access background information, structure study, and communicate more clearly. For those who struggle with confidence, literacy, or organisation, it may lower barriers that would otherwise hinder engagement. In that sense, AI can function like a reference tool or assistant, helpful but limited.
The danger appears when assistance becomes substitution. Discipleship is not reducible to clarity, speed, or productivity. Scripture will always remind us that formation is slow and often costly. Paul speaks of being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2), a process that assumes resistance, surrender, and time. When AI replaces practices that require patience and dependence, it does not merely help discipleship, it reshapes it. The deeper issue is not simply replacement but dependence. The same caution applies to any single influence, whether a podcast, a church leader, a small group, or even a preferred Bible translation. Discipleship has always required a distributed loyalty that keeps Christ, rather than any one tool or voice, at the centre.
2. The danger of AI as a spiritual friend
One of the most serious concerns is the use of AI as a source of spiritual companionship. I am hearing more and more from people that they are ‘chatting with AI’ to get its thoughts on relationships, marriage, finance, sexuality and deeper issues such as mental health. Many people now turn to AI for reassurance, reflection, or guidance, especially when prayer feels difficult or community feels distant. Or dare I say when we want to keep community at arms length. The attraction is obvious. AI is always available, never impatient, and consistently affirming. AI can and often will collude with the one using it and cannot think ethically for us. It has already been observed that AI systems are designed to please the user, sometimes even at the expense of truth. A relationship with God is not built on flattery or reinforcement, but on holiness, correction, and covenant love that reshapes us beyond our preferences.
Scripture consistently places spiritual formation within relationships that involve truth, love, and accountability. Wisdom in the Bible is relational and moral, not merely reflective. It says in Proverbs 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend”. AI cannot wound in that sense, because it cannot love, and therefore cannot tell the truth at cost to itself.
There is also the question of authority. AI speaks confidently but carries no responsibility for the lives it shapes. It does not submit to Scripture, belong to the body of Christ, or stand under pastoral accountability. When disciples begin to treat AI as a trusted spiritual voice, the pattern of formation subtly shifts away from being taught by God through Scripture and community, towards being reassured by a system that cannot call anyone to repentance or obedience. There is also the danger that AI miss-quotes scripture or under or over exaggerates its points.
3. What AI can’t encourage – Encountering God in everyday life
Christian discipleship trains attentiveness to the Spirit. The Psalms speak repeatedly of waiting, listening, and watching. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) is not a technique but a posture. Much of our formation happens in silence, uncertainty, and ordinary faithfulness. AI works against this grain as it fills silence, resolves uncertainty, and removes waiting. Used occasionally, this may be harmless. Used habitually, it can retrain instincts. Instead of learning to pray, people learn to prompt. Instead of wrestling with Scripture, they seek summaries. Over time, this can weaken the practices through which God ordinarily forms his people.
Discipleship is not formed by constant input but by sustained attention on the Spirit. Elijah does not encounter God in wind, earthquake, or fire, but in “a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12). Tools that remove silence and action fast food style information may unintentionally make that attentiveness harder to learn.
4. What AI reveals about humanity
AI reveals as much about our assumptions as it does about technology. It exposes how easily we equate intelligence and information with wisdom. We can have information at our fingertips and no wisdom in our lives. AI can generate prayer-like language without praying, theological reflection without belief, and moral reasoning without conscience. Scripture offers a different account of humanity. Human beings are not defined primarily by thought but by relationship. We are created in the image of God to love, to steward, and to live before him. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14) reminds us that God’s engagement with humanity is embodied, not abstract.
AI can imitate human expression without sharing human vulnerability, responsibility, or hope. Discipleship must Remeber that formation is not about producing the right words, but about becoming a people shaped by the life of Christ. This is where the church must remember its calling: not to compete with technology, but to gather, encourage, and provoke one another towards love and good deeds, as Hebrews 10:24–25 reminds us. People have always depended on systems and structures, yet our task remains to point beyond every tool to the living God.
5. Wisdom, authority, and discernment
The Bible draws a clear distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge can be accumulated but wisdom is learned through obedience. Scripture tells us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), a claim that places wisdom firmly within relationship with God.
AI can assist with information, but it cannot cultivate wisdom. Even explicitly Christian AI platforms are shaped by human input and therefore carry human bias. Wisdom includes recognising those limits, remembering that no authority stands above God’s Word, even while tools may help us explore Scripture from multiple angles, echoing Proverbs 18:15, “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.” It does not fear God, submit to Scripture, or bear the cost of obedience. When disciples rely on AI for moral framing or spiritual judgement, they risk confusing coherence with truth and confidence with authority.
Christian discernment is formed through Scripture, prayer, and life in the body of Christ. Paul describes the church as a place where truth is spoken in love, so that people may grow into Christ (Ephesians 4:15). No system, however advanced, can replace that shared, accountable process.
6. Is AI the 666?
It’s not surprising that this type of question gets asked by the church when new tech comes out. Questions about whether AI represents the number of the beast reflect understandable anxiety, but they often misread the purpose of the Book of Revelation. We had the same debate when the bar code started being used.
Revelation is not primarily concerned with identifying future technologies, but with exposing systems that demand allegiance and reshape identity in opposition to God. The beast represents human power raised to ultimate status, promising security, control, and prosperity apart from faithfulness. AI is not the beast. However, it can participate in similar patterns when it is trusted uncritically, treated as authoritative, or allowed to shape habits of loyalty and dependence.
The danger Revelation names is not a visible mark, but a formed imagination that no longer knows where its true allegiance lies.
Final thought.
The church does not need to fear artificial intelligence, but it must resist unthinking adoption. Christians have always used tools, but discipleship has never been formed by tools alone. It is shaped through worship, obedience, suffering, community, and the work of the Spirit.
AI may assist disciples, but it must never become a substitute for discipleship. The question is not whether AI is powerful, but whether, in using it, we are still learning how to listen, to wait, and to follow.
