With a Subtitle: A Biblical Christian reflection on grace, faith, and witnessing to artificial intelligence
A brief Excerpt: What does it mean when a Christian spends 12 hours telling ChatGPT that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ? This post examines evangelism, truth, and AI from a Biblical Christian worldview.
Words of Wisdom from the Babylon Bee – The title of the article reads, “Missionary On Hour Twelve Of Trying To Get ChatGPT Saved,” and it takes a humorous approach to a missionary attempting to save, or at least convince, ChatGPT of the existence of God and the need for humanity to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Can ChatGPT be used to spread the word about Salvation?
The Question Behind the Conversation
Consider a Christian evangelist spending 12 hours trying to get ChatGPT to believe that God’s grace and man’s faith in Jesus Christ are what saves people. That sounds strange, maybe even crazy, at first. Why would someone spend so much time trying to convince AI of something that can have no impact on its existence? Why put Scripture, doctrine, and heartfelt pleas into a machine that doesn’t have a soul, a conscience, or the ability to repent?
However, there is a real spiritual issue behind that strange picture. The missionary isn’t just talking to a computer. He is grappling with the profound inquiry of the gospel’s relevance in an increasingly technology-driven world. He is facing the fear that truth is turning into data, morality is turning into preference, and eternity is turning into abstraction. His long talk isn’t just about ChatGPT. It’s about the time we live in.
Not by human effort, but by grace, is salvation.
The Christian message is not hard to understand, but those who have fallen (which is all of us) often fight against it. The Bible makes it clear that God provides us all a pathway for salvation.
Ephesians 2:8-9 - For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Biblical Christianity is built on that truth.
God’s unearned favor is grace.
Grace means that no one can earn their way into heaven. No amount of moral improvement, religious ritual, intellectual sophistication, or emotional sincerity can bring man and God back into fellowship. Because of sin, people are guilty before a holy God.
Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
The issue is not solely ignorance on the part of mankind; it is an act of rebellion.
The evangelist who spends hours talking about salvation is trying to make this point. He is adamant that improved programming, enhanced education, or spiritual self-help do not constitute the solution to humanity’s predicament. It is God’s mercy. God, not man, and certainly not a machine, is the beginning of salvation.
Faith Is the Way, Not the Work
The Bible says that this grace comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is not a deed that merits salvation. A person is not saved due to the impressiveness of their faith or the effort put forth in attempting to be good, but it comes from the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved," says Acts 16:31.
That belief is not merely an agreement in one’s mind. It is a faith, from the heart, in the Savior who died and rose again. It is a turning away from oneself and resting solely in Christ. So, if the missionary kept talking about grace and faith for those 12 hours, he was going back to the heart of the gospel, even if AI cannot be converted to that truth.
Why put the Gospel into a machine?
This point is where a lot of Christians might object. ChatGPT cannot be reborn. It can’t feel guilty about sin. It can’t say the name of the Lord. It can understand language, but it can’t seek forgiveness. Does that mean that conversation is pointless?
Not completely.
The Exchange Shows Us What We Think About Truth
When a Christian explains the gospel clearly, even to an AI system, he is expressing the truth from his heart. He is saying that salvation is not just one of many choices. It is not a matter of personal choice or custom. It is the only path to God and eternal life.
In John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
This statement is remains true, even if the “person” who hears it is a computer. In that way, the evangelist may be using the conversation as a way to testify in public. He is strengthening his own beliefs, honing his skills in apologetics. He won’t let Biblical truth be watered down in a world where technology often treats all beliefs as equally valid.
The Real Audience is not AI
There is also a different option for the exchange. There are times when a person interacting with AI isn’t really trying to change the machine. He is making the gospel clearer for himself and for anyone else who might read the exchange later. The real audience might be those who read his work in the future.
That matters because technology now affects how we talk to each other, learn, get news, and form our views of the world. The missionary may know that AI can’t be saved, but he also knows that people can. The exchange has value if it helps establish confidence and practice addressing false theology on the part of the evangelist.
The Boundaries of Artificial Intelligence
AI Can Read Words but Not Pray to God
AI can sum up theology, quote Bible verses, and explain the doctrine of justification. However, it is incapable of submitting to Christ in faith and repentance. It doesn’t have a spirit, a moral obligation to God, or an eternal destiny like humans do. The book of Genesis says that only humans are made in God’s image. Man, not God, makes machines, yet God made man in His image.
A Machine Cannot Do What the Holy Spirit Does
No algorithm can bring the heart back to life. No chatbot can create saving faith. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can convict one of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The evangelist may spend 12 hours making arguments, but no sinner will be saved unless God opens the eyes of the blind (John 9:25), a relationship only available to mankind.
What Christians Should Take Away From This
In one way, the picture of a Christian missionary witnessing to ChatGPT for 12 hours is wrong. The machine will never follow Christ. But the passion behind it is simple to understand. That kind of passion for the truth is what Christians should have. We should care that the gospel is told correctly: God’s grace alone saves us, and we can receive it only through faith in Jesus Christ.
We need to protect our sense of purpose. Christians are called to preach the gospel to those willing to listen because people have souls and will stand before God and be judged at the end of time. Technology can be a tool, a place to share ideas, or even a means to challenge or clarify our ideas. But the hearts of people are the only dwelling places of the true light of the gospel message.
2 Corinthians 4:6 - For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
So the lesson is not that ChatGPT needs to be saved or that it can’t be saved. The lesson is that the church, the body of Christ, should never lose faith in the only message that can save … mankind. The gospel remains the power of God to save those who believe, even in a world of artificial intelligence.
Romans 10:9 - If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org
This article appeared on Babylonbee and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.