Why ChatGPT Can’t Preach
By Dave Cook
I never imagined watching an online chatbot analyze my YouTube videos and write a sermon introduction that sounds like me—in three seconds. But brothers, here we are.
The question I and my preacher friends are asking, that you may be asking, is whether there’s a godly way to work this technology into our preaching. I’m convinced there is, but that the dangers of misuse are very real and may be greater. In this series of articles, I want to answer that question first with a core conviction that will remain true as technology changes, then with six aspects of your preaching routine that can’t be replaced by technology, and finally with a few accountable and wise ways to use the help of AI in your preaching workflow.
For today, here’s one deep-seated conviction that answers the bigger question of how we use all technology—books, computers, pens, and whatever comes tomorrow—to help us in our calling to preach God’s word. You may have heard others say in strong terms that letting AI write your sermon for you is very wrong. And you may (I hope) already agree. This principle is the reason why.
What Technology Cannot Replace
Have you noticed the intuitive ethic that’s developing around AI use? Most of us are ok using it to flip burgers or find accounting errors. But if a wife sends her husband a sweet text that turns out to have been written by ChatGPT, something feels off. We can sense, even if we don’t have words for it, that some things in life shouldn’t be replaced by technology. You don’t want a device that hugs your daughter for you or eats your dinner for you.
Preaching is one of those things we know can’t be replaced. It doesn’t work without a human connection. Congregations want to hear stories about the preacher’s car breaking down, the cackle of his unique laugh, the connection of his eye contact, the zealous fire of a voice that believes what it’s saying, and some (maybe not all) of his awkward mannerisms. They want to see a real person up there.
It's easy to miss, but there’s a biblical reason for this. The Lord commissioned people to proclaim his Gospel to the ends of the earth. When the unknown God made himself known to us, he did so as a man we could see, hear, and interact with (John 1:18). And when he commissioned his news to be spread, he commissioned humans to do it (Mt 28:16–20).
Here, then, is a core conviction that guides our technology use in preaching:
Of all the creatures in the universe, God called only Spirit-filled men to preach Gospel sermons.
He had what many would consider better options. His angels would have finished the job quickly, yet he did not choose them. They can certainly deliver powerful messages (the word literally means messenger). They even proclaim “good news” that includes elements of the Good News (Isa 6:6–7, Lk 2:10–11, Rev 14:6). But after our Lord died and rose, he commissioned his people to proclaim the message of the Gospel, what we would call evangelistic preaching. We see this strikingly when the angel who appears to Cornelius does not preach the Gospel to him. The angel instead told Corneilus to send for Peter, who would proclaim the Gospel (Acts 10). That angel would not tread upon the work that only Peter had been sent to do.
He did not even choose Spirit-filled women for this task! Our sisters are busy through the book of Acts. They pray (Acts 1:14, 12:13–16), open their homes (12:12, 16:14–15), care for the needy (9:36–40), explain doctrine to men (18:24–26), endure persecution (8:3, 9:2), and bear witness to the resurrection (13:31). They are worthy to rule over angels in the coming Kingdom (1 Cor 6:3). But when the Gospel is heralded to a crowd—from Peter (Acts 2:4) to John (4:31), to Stephen (6:8, 10) to Paul (9:17)—it’s always preached by a man full of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:8).
My point is that only a Spirit-filled man can compose a sermon. As I say that, I hope you can feel the mystery of God’s sovereign choice welling up in your soul. If what we do on Sunday morning cannot be replaced by Heaven’s angels or even by our Spirit-filled wives, it surely cannot be replaced by the latest slickest chatbot. This will remain true even if AI can one day write a “better” sermon than we can.
To say this more technically, two irreplaceable elements in preaching are the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of the preacher. Remove one or the other and you cannot have a sermon that pleases God. This is why a sermon that isn’t delivered and composed by the preacher doesn’t work.
I notice, in many lines of work, that those who are tempted to wrongly let ChatGPT do their work for them either loathe their work or fear their work. If you feel anything like disdain or dread toward writing your sermons, don’t give in to the temptation even once. In fact, consider seriously whether you should keep preaching at all.
To get more specific we will have to ask, “What aspects of preaching can only be done by the Spirit or the preacher?” That’s where the next article goes, walking through several aspects of sermon preparation that technology will never be able to do for us. Once we remember which parts of our work to guard, the third article will explore some ways AI can enhance our work without doing it for us.
Editors note: This article is part 1 of a 3-part series entitled AI in Preaching. Links to the second and third article will be added as they are posted.