Why is AI So Popular?

When Knowledge Increases: AI, Information, and the Wisdom We Still Need. 

Why is AI so popular? 

I propose that there are several interesting perspectives that each of us could give, but I’m gonna offer a few of my own.

Some are supported by what we can observe, while others arise from intuition—or perhaps simply a pastoral gut feeling. Either way, I invite you to join me in the conversation.

Why has artificial intelligence become so popular so quickly? What need does it satisfy within us? And what does its growth reveal about our culture—and perhaps about ourselves?

We Have an Insatiable Appetite for Information

The first thing that comes to mind is our seemingly endless need for information.

We are living in an age of information overload. Social media never stops scrolling. News is available around the clock. Podcasts, videos, emails, text messages, websites, and notifications compete constantly for our attention.

We do not want to be left out. When everyone around us seems to be keeping up with the latest developments, we feel pressure to remain informed and relevant. We may even fear that if we disconnect for too long, the world will move forward without us.

Artificial intelligence is proving helpful in this regard. It can gather information, summarize lengthy documents, explain difficult subjects, and organize ideas in seconds. Instead of searching through dozens of websites, we can ask a question and receive a customized response.

That convenience is impressive—but it presents a danger. More information does not necessarily produce greater understanding. We may consume enormous amounts of material while becoming less capable of sitting quietly, thinking deeply, and discerning what is actually true.

Information can fill the mind without ever transforming the heart.

We Look for Information That Supports Us

I also suspect that information appeals to us because it can validate assumptions we already hold.

Ask ten people the same controversial question and you may receive ten very different answers. Each person can usually find an article, study, statistic, expert, or social-media post that supports his or her position.

There is now enough information available to make almost anyone feel correct.

Consider how much money is invested in research, polling, marketing, and data analysis. Information has tremendous value because it can influence public opinion, shape consumer behavior, and strengthen an argument. Yet data does not always speak as plainly as we imagine. The questions researchers ask, the information they include, and the way they interpret the results can all affect the conclusion.

Artificial intelligence is proving helpful here as well. It can locate evidence, compare arguments, identify patterns, and help us communicate our position. But AI can also reinforce our biases if we ask questions designed only to confirm what we already believe.

There is a significant difference between asking, “Can you prove that I am right?” and asking, “Help me discover what is true.”

The first question seeks vindication. The second requires humility.

We Need Help

Then there is our very practical need for assistance. We all need help.

We watch a YouTube video to repair an appliance. We search online when a warning light appears in the car. We need help understanding medical terminology, completing paperwork, planning a trip, preparing a presentation, or troubleshooting a computer.

Sometimes we are assigned tasks that seem far beyond our experience or ability. Many of us are trying to accomplish more than our time and energy will allow. I know that I need an assistant to help me stay organized, develop ideas, conduct research, and manage the many responsibilities competing for my attention.

Once again, artificial intelligence is proving helpful.

It can function as a research assistant, editor, organizer, tutor, and creative partner. Used responsibly, it can save time and help ordinary people accomplish things that once required specialized knowledge.

But an assistant must never become our master.

AI can offer recommendations, but it cannot bear moral responsibility for our decisions. It can produce language about compassion without actually loving anyone. It can explain forgiveness without forgiving. It can discuss prayer without praying and describe faith without trusting God.

Technology can assist our calling, but it cannot replace our obedience.

Customizable Answers Have Changed Our Expectations

The rapid growth of the internet—and now of artificial intelligence—has given us more than access to information. It has given us access to customizable answers.

We no longer have to settle for a general explanation written for everyone. We can request an answer designed around our occupation, location, age, interests, or personal circumstances. This is powerful, useful, and in many ways remarkable.

All of us are being affected by it. Whether we are debating the enormous data centers appearing in communities, considering their demands on electricity and water, or simply deciding whether we need the latest device, AI is becoming part of everyday life.

The issue is no longer whether artificial intelligence will influence society. It already does. The more important question is how we will respond to it.

Will we accept every answer because it sounds convincing? Will we surrender our thinking to a machine? Will we use technology to serve others, or merely to make life more convenient for ourselves?

Knowledge Is Increasing—but Are We Becoming Wiser?

The prophet Daniel wrote:

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

—Daniel 12:4, NKJV

That sounds remarkably relevant to our times.

We should be careful, however, not to claim more than the passage says. In its original context, Daniel is receiving a prophetic revelation that would be preserved until God’s appointed time. The increase in knowledge may refer particularly to a growing understanding of Daniel’s message.

In just a few moments, you can create nearly anything. Just one prompt can tell AI what you want created. Like this image, it showed me what my patio can loo looks. 

Nevertheless, the language certainly resonates with our experience. People are moving rapidly across the earth, information travels almost instantly, and human knowledge is increasing at an extraordinary rate.

Yet Daniel does not say that increasing knowledge will automatically make humanity wiser, kinder, or more faithful.

Scripture consistently distinguishes knowledge from wisdom. Knowledge gives us facts; wisdom teaches us what to do with them. Knowledge increases our capabilities; wisdom directs those capabilities toward what is good. Knowledge may tell us what can be done; wisdom asks whether it should be done.

The book of Proverbs declares:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”

—Proverbs 1:7

James gives us another important standard:

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits.”

—James 3:17

That is a test no computer can take on our behalf.

The Greatest Need of Our Age

Perhaps the greatest need of our age is not more information but greater discernment.

We need people who can evaluate what they read, recognize manipulation, admit when they may be wrong, and distinguish truth from an attractive imitation. We need Christians who know Scripture well enough to examine the messages being presented to them.

Artificial intelligence can help us study the Bible, but it cannot replace the Holy Spirit. It can locate a verse, but it cannot obey that verse for us. It can organize a sermon, but it cannot give the preacher a burden for souls. It can help compose a prayer, but it cannot enter into communion with God.

The danger is not necessarily that machines will become too human. The greater danger may be that human beings will become too mechanical—constantly processing information while losing our capacity for worship, wonder, relationships, compassion, and quiet reflection.

We should not fear every new technology, nor should we embrace it without question. We should receive useful tools with gratitude while exercising biblical wisdom and responsible restraint.

Use AI to help you research—but verify what it tells you.

Use it to improve your communication—but keep your authentic voice.

Use it to organize your work—but do not allow productivity to become your identity.

Use it to explore difficult questions—but continue seeking God through Scripture, prayer, Christian community, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Knowledge is certainly increasing. The question now is whether our wisdom, character, and faithfulness will increase with it.

In an age filled with instant answers, may we remain people who seek the One who is Truth.

From Testimony to Multiplication When Disciples Make Disciples.

“What God is doing and has done in me is not meant to end with me.”

Primary Scriptures: 2 Timothy 2:1–2; Matthew 28:18–20

Watch Worship here!

God can transform the trials we endure into testimonies that strengthen others. He meets us in our trials, forms us through them, and then ministers through us because of what we have experienced.

But what happens after God uses our testimony to strengthen someone? Does the ministry end there, or does God intend for what He has done in us to continue moving outward?

Scripture reveals a pattern:

Test → Testimony → Ministry → Multiplication

In the test, God meets me. Through my testimony, I tell what God has done. In ministry, I use what I have received to strengthen another person. Multiplication happens when that person begins strengthening someone else.

One Teacher and One Salesman

In 1855, Dwight L. Moody was an eighteen-year-old shoe salesman in Boston. He was not yet the famous evangelist whose preaching would reach crowds across America and Great Britain. He was simply a young man working in his uncle’s shoe store.

One of his uncle’s requirements was that Moody attend church. Moody began attending Mount Vernon Congregational Church, where he joined a Sunday school class taught by Edward Kimball.

Kimball became concerned about the spiritual lives of the young men in his class. He did not want merely to teach them a lesson each Sunday. He wanted them to know Jesus personally.

One day, Kimball decided to visit Moody at the shoe store and speak with him about Christ. He later remembered that he almost lost his nerve. He worried that approaching Moody during business hours might embarrass him or interfere with his work. He apparently walked past the store before gathering the courage to enter.

Kimball found Moody working in the back of the store. There, surrounded by shoes and boxes, an ordinary Sunday school teacher spoke personally to a young salesman about Christ and the love of God.

That quiet conversation became a turning point in Moody’s life. Moody placed his faith in Jesus Christ.

Edward Kimball could not have imagined everything God would eventually do through that one conversation. Moody later moved to Chicago, gathered children into a Sunday school, established ministries and schools, and became one of the most influential evangelists of the nineteenth century.

Before the crowds, campaigns, schools, and institutions, however, there was one Sunday school teacher who cared enough to enter a shoe store and speak to one young man.

Kimball did not personally preach to all the people Moody would eventually reach. Kimball reached Moody, and then God worked through Moody to reach others.

That is multiplication.

The lesson is not that every person we mentor will become a world-famous evangelist. The lesson is that we cannot see how far God may carry one faithful conversation, one word of encouragement, or one life invested in another.

D. L. Moody later said:

“If this world is going to be reached, I am convinced that it must be done by men and women of average talent.”

The question is not, “Will I become famous?” The question is, “Will I be faithful to the person God places before me?”

The Multiplication Pattern

Paul wrote these words to Timothy:

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
—2 Timothy 2:1–2

This passage contains four generations of disciples.

First, there is Paul. Paul received the gospel and lived it before Timothy.

Second, there is Timothy. He learned from Paul and served alongside him.

Third, there are the faithful people to whom Timothy was to entrust the truth.

Fourth, there are the others whom those faithful people would eventually teach.

Paul did not tell Timothy simply to remember what he had learned. He told him to entrust it to people who would pass it along again.

That is the difference between addition and multiplication.

Addition asks, “How many people can I personally reach?” Multiplication asks, “Whom can I equip to reach others?”

Chuck Swindoll expressed the challenge plainly:

“Frequently, we’re good learners but terrible teachers.”

It is possible to attend church, listen to sermons, participate in Bible studies, and accumulate spiritual knowledge without ever passing that truth to another person. But discipleship is not complete when truth reaches us. It is meant to continue through us.

The Great Commission is not fulfilled merely by gathering a larger audience. Jesus calls us to make disciples who can make other disciples.

Grace Transforms Us

Before discipleship can multiply through us, the life of Christ must be growing within us.

Jesus said:

“If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
—John 15:5

Fruitfulness begins by remaining in Christ. Multiplication begins with abiding, not activity. We cannot reproduce in another person a spiritual life that we are neglecting ourselves.

God uses Scripture, prayer, worship, Christian fellowship, trials, correction, and the work of the Holy Spirit to form the character of Jesus within us.

This is central to our Wesleyan understanding of grace. God’s grace does not merely forgive our past; His grace transforms our present. The Holy Spirit forms holy love within us, teaching us to love God wholeheartedly and love our neighbors as ourselves.

John Wesley wrote:

“The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.”

Wesley was not saying that holiness is primarily a political program. He was rejecting the idea that we can become holy in isolation. We need Christian relationships in which we pray, confess, encourage, serve, learn, and watch over one another in love.

God’s work in us becomes the foundation for God’s work through us.

God comforts us, and then we comfort others. God teaches us, and then we teach others. God forgives us, and then we demonstrate forgiveness. God strengthens us, and then we strengthen others.

The fruit God produces in one life contains the seed of spiritual growth for another life.

What has God been developing in you that He now wants to use in someone else?

When Caring Becomes Mentoring

Discipleship multiplication does not ordinarily happen by accident. Someone intentionally invests in someone else.

Jesus invested in the Twelve. Paul invested in Timothy. Timothy was instructed to invest in faithful people. Titus encouraged older believers to model godliness for younger believers.

This is where mentoring connects our testimony to multiplication.

A mentor does not need to possess all the answers. A Christian mentor is simply someone who can say:

“I am still following Jesus, but I will invite you to walk with me as we follow Him together.”

Mentoring might involve meeting regularly, listening carefully, reading Scripture together, praying for one another, asking honest questions, serving side by side, and discussing what it means to obey Jesus in everyday life.

There is a difference between caring and mentoring.

Caring says: “Let me help you through this difficulty.”

Mentoring says: “Let me walk with you as you learn to follow Jesus through this difficulty—and eventually help someone else.”

We do not need to care less. We need our care to become deeper, more intentional, and more spiritually fruitful.

Jesus told Peter:

“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
—Luke 22:32

Peter would be tested. Peter would fail. Peter would be restored. Then Peter would strengthen others.

Jesus did not tell Peter to hide his failure. He told Peter to allow his restoration to become part of his responsibility.

Our testimony becomes ministry when we share it. Our ministry becomes multiplication when we prepare others to share what they have received.

Comfort Received Becomes Comfort Shared

Paul describes the same principle in his second letter to the Corinthians:

“The God of all comfort…comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
—2 Corinthians 1:3–4

God’s comfort is never intended to stop with us. Grace received becomes grace shared.

The experience through which God carried us can become part of the ministry He entrusts to us.

This does not mean we must have experienced exactly the same trial as the person we are helping. Our greatest resource is not an identical experience. Our greatest resource is the faithful comfort of God.

We do not have to know everything to help someone follow Jesus. We need to know Jesus, remain teachable, and be willing to walk beside another person.

Swindoll described encouragement as “putting courage into someone else.” That is a helpful description of mentoring. We walk beside people and help them develop the courage to trust Christ, obey His Word, and take their next faithful step.

Equipping God’s People

Ephesians 4 explains that Christ gives leaders to the church:

“To equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”
—Ephesians 4:12

As a pastor, I am not called to perform all the ministry while everyone else watches. I am called to equip God’s people to participate in the ministry of Jesus.

The ministry of the church multiplies when equipped people begin equipping others.

This means moving:

• From watching ministry to participating in ministry.
• From receiving care to providing care.
• From attending a class to helping someone grow.
• From depending upon the pastor to serving alongside the pastor.
• From being a disciple to becoming a disciple-maker.

This does not make pastoral care less important. It multiplies Christian care throughout the congregation.

Imagine mature couples mentoring younger couples. Imagine older believers encouraging younger believers. Imagine someone who has experienced grief walking beside someone who is newly grieving.

Imagine every new believer having someone who will read Scripture and pray with them. Imagine every ministry leader bringing another person alongside—not merely to complete a task, but to develop that person for ministry.

That is the kind of church Jesus is building.

The Great Commission Belongs to Every Disciple

Jesus said:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
—Matthew 28:19–20

The command is not simply to attract people. The command is to make disciples.

We help people encounter God’s grace. We invite them to trust Christ. We welcome them into the community of faith. We teach them not merely to know what Jesus commanded, but to obey what He commanded.

Then we help them discover their gifts, enter ministry, and begin helping someone else follow Jesus.

A mature disciple does not merely ask, “Who is helping me?” A mature disciple eventually begins asking, “Whom can I help?”

John Wesley challenged his early Methodist preachers:

“You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work.”

Although Wesley addressed those words to preachers, the mission belongs to the entire church. Every believer has a part in helping others encounter the saving and transforming grace of Christ.

God Produces the Growth

Spiritual multiplication is not something we manufacture through human effort.

Paul wrote:

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
—1 Corinthians 3:6

Paul planted. Apollos watered. God gave the growth.

That truth protects us from pride because we cannot take credit for another person’s transformation. It also protects us from discouragement because we are not responsible for forcing spiritual results.

Our responsibility is faithfulness. God is responsible for transformation.

We cannot change another person’s heart. We can plant truth, water it with love, and trust God to produce growth.

Edward Kimball did not know everything that would happen after he entered that shoe store. He simply took the faithful step God placed before him.

We may not see the full result of our prayers, encouragement, testimony, or mentoring. That does not make our faithfulness insignificant. God can take one seed planted in faith and produce fruit for generations.

What This Means for the Church

Fellowship is important because it brings us together. But fellowship should lead us toward discipleship, which helps us become like Jesus.

Caring helps someone through a difficult day. Mentoring helps someone develop a faithful life.

An event may gather people in one place. A relationship gives us the opportunity to listen, pray, encourage, and help someone take the next step toward Christ.

God is calling the church to move:

• From fellowship to discipleship.
• From caring to mentoring.
• From events to relationships.
• From management to empowerment.
• From pastor-led ministry to congregational ministry.

This does not require a complicated new program. It requires us to become intentional about the relationships God has already given us.

Discipleship happens around tables as much as it happens in classrooms. It can happen over coffee, during a meal, or while two people serve together. It can begin when someone asks, “Would you pray with me?” or “Could we read this passage together?”

Multiplication begins when one person cares enough to help one other person follow Jesus.

Who Is Your One?

The process can be remembered in four words:

Receive → Reproduce → Release → Repeat

Receive: I receive the grace, comfort, truth, and transforming work of Jesus.

Reproduce: I intentionally invest what God has given me in another person.

Release: I help that person discover their gifts and participate in ministry.

Repeat: That person begins investing in someone else.

Who is one person God may be asking you to encourage and help follow Jesus?

It may be someone younger than you. It may be a new believer. It may be someone experiencing a trial you understand. It may be someone in your family, congregation, workplace, or neighborhood.

Begin by praying for that person. Build an intentional relationship. Share Scripture and the testimony of what God has done in your life. Invite that person to serve with you. As that person grows, encourage them to begin helping someone else.

You do not have to begin with a crowd. Edward Kimball began with one young salesman in the back of a shoe store.

The gospel reached us because someone passed it along. Someone prayed for us. Someone taught us. Someone encouraged us. Someone showed us what following Jesus looked like.

Now the gospel has been entrusted to us.

God has not comforted us merely to make us comfortable. He has comforted us so that we can comfort others. God has not formed us merely for our own maturity. He has formed us so that we can help form others.

Jesus has not called us merely to attend church. He has called us to become disciples who make disciples.

We cannot see how far God may carry one faithful conversation, one mentoring relationship, or one life surrendered to Christ.

What God is doing and has done in me is not meant to end with me.

Who is your one?