Where do you turn for answers? More and more people are turning to artificial intelligence. Some 987 million people use AI chatbots daily. nbc News reports that 52 percent of American adults have used a large language model like Chatgpt and Gemini. Meta AI (integrated into Facebook) has 500 million active users, and Chatgpt has 400 million. What is astounding are the total monthly visits: Chatgpt alone records 4.6 billion visits per month!

Millions of people ask AI chatbots questions each day. It has never been easier: You can type in any question and the bot will spit back an answer within seconds. But can you trust AI chatbots to tell you the truth?

AI chatbots appear to do fine with their training data (mainly medical and law information), or information that their machine learning has been consistently exposed to, but they struggle with more complex data. A bbc report showed that 45 percent of chatbot responses about news articles contained inaccuracies in their answers to questions.

If AI struggles with current news, what about spiritual teachings?

In this age of religious awakening, some people are looking to AI as their spiritual guide. Statistics show that the younger, tech-savvy generations are driving the return to traditional Christian churches. It is easy, fast and convenient to put your questions about a doctrine or scripture to Google Gemini or Chatgpt. Dedicated Bible AI programs, such as Bible Answers AI and Biblegpt, are intended to be Bible study tools. There is even one called “Jesus AI” where you can talk to a digital savior.

While AI offers several tools that, used properly, can be very effective, it can also be a potent threat to our mind.

The human mind not only needs knowledge, it needs to learn how to acquire knowledge. The process of learning builds character and trains the mind in critical thinking. Character and critical thinking are key to acquiring knowledge and applying it. That is why reading is so crucial to learning: The search for answers and knowledge in the pages of a book develops the mind in a way that talking to an AI chatbot cannot. AI is robbing us of the experience of learning that requires time, patience and concentration.

There is a reason God recorded His truth in a book. Besides teaching you truth, studying the Bible is also a character-building experience. You simply cannot read the Bible cover to cover and make sense of it. God had it written in a manner that requires careful study. “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10).

However, truly understanding the Bible requires more than careful study. It requires a miracle!

Since Adam rejected the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, we live in a world cut off from God and ruled by His adversary, Satan the devil (Genesis 3:22-24; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Revelation 12:9). Our entire civilization is based on an attitude and system of knowledge directly opposed to God’s way of life (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 8:7). All of man’s knowledge is physical, not spiritual.

The danger of AI is that it draws solely on the physical, material knowledge mankind has acquired while cut off from God. AI chatbots cannot answer spiritual questions because they have zero spiritual knowledge.

The Bible is Jesus Christ in print. AI is Satan’s civilization in pixels.

If we want to find the truth and real spiritual knowledge, we must come humbly before God with a childlike attitude. The Apostle Paul said that he didn’t speak “with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5). AI is the “enticing words of man’s wisdom.” We need to seek God’s understanding from the source and from where it is being taught in power.

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (verse 11). God’s Holy Spirit must open our minds to the truth of God! No amount of AI chatbots can cause this miraculous opening of the mind to God’s truth.

The path to true understanding begins with reading your Bible every day. Christ taught us that we must live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4). Don’t let this age of technological ease rob your mind of critical thinking or cheapen the exciting and wonderful experience of studying God’s Word. Reading the Bible is a lifelong journey that transforms your mind and your life day by day, line by line, precept by precept.

Don’t turn to AI for answers; turn to the pages of the Bible!