Can A.I. Write a Sermon?

The renewal of the mind via ChatGPT

I spent most of my twenties writing sermons. It’s a commentary on the times that a guy in that decade of his young career could possibly be the lead pastor of a church. But I had the academic credentials: Bible School. Seminary. I took courses in homelitics.¹ Looking back, I pretty much replicated what I learned. The rule of thumb went something like this: thirty minutes in the pulpit requires twenty hours in the study.

In our church, sermons were expected to be Bible-centric.

Those twenty hours meant translating original languages, plowing through commentaries, reviewing the historical context, excavating the theological ideas, employing the principle of exegesis² and avoiding the temptation of eisegesis³, and most important of all, finding those practical applications that we Christians can all use in our daily life. I went back and looked at some of those over-worked and over-thought sermon outlines, and felt a deep prompting to apologize to those poor folks who showed up every week in their Sunday best.

But it’s too late.

They were so kind. And patient. Really.

Lately, I’ve discovered the magic of ChatGPT. And Gemini. As a writer and a reader, and a perpetual researcher, they are fantastic tools. For years, I’ve relied on Wikipedia, wholly embracing the concept of open-source knowledge. I’ve even chipped in to support Wiki, with gratitude for the millions of thoughtful people who contribute to this massive knowledge base. The people I know who dislike Wikipedia usually do so because they don’t like what they find there—especially when they’re searching for confirmation of faulty theology or baseless conspiracy theories, which Wikipedia typically doesn’t support.

But A.I. has taken my research to a whole new level. I can ask very specific questions, and I’m flat blown away by what comes up.

Here are some actual, recent examples -

• How did Darwinism evolve into eugenics?

• When did we begin thinking in terms of a seven-day week?

• Why did my Whirlpool refrigerator stop producing ice and drinking water the moment I replaced the filter?

• In 200 words, explain how Socrates and Plato influenced Aristotle.

Go ahead and check out the answers for yourself. They’re great.

Recently, I read an article that raised this issue: Should pastors use ChatGPT to write their sermons? Good question. It poses the challenge of plagiarism. Of originality. Of integrity.

Some pastors have lost their jobs because someone figured out that the Sunday message preached from the pulpit was lifted (stolen) from another preacher or book. Word for word. Oops. Busted.

What about A.I.? Is that plagiarism?

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I need to insert here that I’m a writer. This is my 50th Substack piece. What you read on this page comes from me tapping the keyboard on my MacBook Air, not “cut and paste” from some digitally created prose. (That should explain the occasional violation of standard grammatical rules. Usually, it’s intentional.)

I may, however, use A.I. to check my facts, just like I use Wikipedia. When I borrow from someone, I do my best to cite the source.

Integrity demands that my stuff is mine. All mine.

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But this reflection triggered another question.

Could ChatGPT actually write a sermon? If so, would it be pulpit-worthy? Would it move an audience? Would it inspire? Would it have biblical validity? Could it somehow replace those twenty hours of intellectual labor? Would it have spiritual heft?

So I did it.

I went to ChatGPT and entered the following command: Give me a 500-word devotional from Romans 12:1-2, specifically directed toward an audience of Exvangelical Christians. Then I hit “return.”

And in less than a minute, here’s what I got - just as it appeared in my browser.

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“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy…”

Paul begins Romans 12 with deep compassion. He’s not laying down a new law but extending an invitation—a call to respond to God’s mercy not with fear, guilt, or performance, but with love. For those of us who’ve come through the tight corridors of rigid religion and are walking the more expansive, sometimes uncertain path of a progressive faith, these verses offer both a grounding and a challenge.

Paul says to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice…”

—and for many exvangelicals, this can be a trigger phrase. We may hear echoes of purity culture, performance-based faith, or the demand to erase ourselves in the name of submission. But here, Paul is reframing sacrifice not as death, but as life. It’s not about rejecting our humanity—it’s about embracing it as sacred. In light of God’s mercy, our bodies, our stories, our struggles, our identities—all are holy and pleasing. Worship is not confined to songs or sermons; it is lived in compassion, justice, and embodiment. Your presence in this world, authentically and courageously lived, is worship.

Then Paul gives us a crucial word: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.”

Often, this was used in the churches we came from to push conformity—to culture wars, political alignment, gender roles, or theological rigidity. But Paul isn’t asking us to blend into religious systems or moralistic control. In fact, he’s calling us away from the dominating structures of empire, consumerism, individualism, and fear. To refuse conformity is to resist injustice, to break free from binaries that exclude, to say no to systems that profit from our silence. For progressive exvangelicals, this may look like refusing to dehumanize others, even those who once dehumanized us. It means stepping out of toxic theologies and into the wild freedom of love.

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

For many of us, that’s exactly what the Spirit is doing now—deconstructing what was destructive, reimagining faith with integrity, compassion, and justice. This renewing doesn’t mean forgetting the past or pretending the harm didn’t happen. It means reclaiming a mind shaped not by fear or indoctrination, but by mercy, curiosity, and the witness of Jesus.

And then—you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

This is not about finding the “one right answer” or living under pressure to perform God’s will like a divine scavenger hunt. This is the kind of discernment that grows out of transformation. It is spacious, Spirit-led, open to nuance. God’s will, Paul says, is good. It is pleasing. It is perfect—not in the sense of flawless execution, but in wholeness, healing, and peace.

So, *my fellow sojourners, in view of God’s mercy, don’t fear the wilderness you’re walking through. Let your life be a holy resistance, a living act of worship, a mind renewed by grace.

Transformation isn’t betrayal—it’s faithfulness.

And you are right in the heart of it.

• from ChatGPT not me

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That’s it. Unedited.

(OK. I did change one thing. *ChatGPT said, “So, my beloved…” I changed it to, “So, my fellow sojourners.” Nothing more.)

Frankly, I don’t know what to do with this. It’s unsettling. It’s amazing and troubling, all at once.

Maybe you can help me with a comment below.

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I chose Romans 12 mainly because I’ve had something of a change of heart relative to the New Testament’s Apostle Paul. For some time now, I’ve been troubled by the realization that much of my Bible education gave Paul priority over Jesus. Paul would be the favorite of guys like John Piper, John MacArthur, Mark Driscoll, and other doctrinal purists (mainly white males). Jesus would get the attention of people like Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Howard Thurman, Rachel Held Evans, and Nadia Bolz-Weber - Christians with a social conscience.

There are passages in the Bible that I wish were just not there. Romans 1 would be an example - a passage that has earned its reputation as a “clobber passage,” readily used to hammer gays, queer folks, and transgenders - unnecessarily consigning them to perdition. Then there’s the misogyny, the patriarchy, the obedience (master/slave) thing and all that.

But somehow, Paul was radically transformed from his early reputation as Saul. In an earlier Substack (The Damascus Road), I opined that Saul (pre-conversion) was the Tom Homan (Trump’s I.C.E. Czar) of his day, rounding up Jesus people for mass incarceration and deportation. And yet post-conversion, the reconstructed “Apostle” Paul gave us two of the most beautiful passages in the Bible: Romans 12 and First Corinthians 13. They score right up there with the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe Paul read Jesus’ words. It just may have inspired him.

And wouldn’t you know, ChatGPT, when addressed to “Exvangelical Christians,” gave me a fresh, inspired look at those familiar first two verses in Romans 12.

How can it be?

I don’t know.

Accept to say -

• If I’m going to be a writer, then I must write, on my own.

• Artificial Intelligence can be a great resource, but it’s not a substitute for original thinking.

• ChatGPT will give back what I ask for. Garbage in. Garbage out. (For example, I asked again, giving the same prompt for a 500-word devotional, but this time directed to an audience of fundamentalists - white evangelical Christians. The result gave me an entirely different message in tone, content, and application.)

• Theology is fluid, not fixed. Like art, it’s in the eye of the beholder and the heart of the receiver.

Paul was right.

Our active minds need perpetual renewal. Transformation.

That’s why I keep on reading and researching and writing.

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1. Homiletics - the art of preaching or writing sermons

2. Exegesis: let the text speak for itself

3. Eisegesis: don’t read your own preconceived ideas into the text