One day awhile back, I finally clicked the ad banner at the top of my Logos app. It read, “The new era of Logos is almost here. Discover what’s next.”
Clicking this ad took me to a web page showcasing the software’s new features, including one that immediately grabbed my attention: AI Sermon Assistant. Clicking on that link took me to an external article with glowing reviews of Sermon Assistant’s various options—buttons which can generate illustrations, applications, review questions, and even sermon outlines.
The reviewer was “thrilled.” But I was left with the sense that I had just seen the lid cracked off Pandora’s box. Is this use of AI ethical? Is it good for the Church?
Mixed Reviews
Many recent voices have agreed that no pastor should ask AI to write his sermons. Preacher’s Talk, for example, released an episode condemning this practice back in April of 2023. Likewise, Mark Ward—a Logos employee—wrote, “Preachers, don’t have AI write your sermons.” And even the aforementioned Logos reviewer (Brandon Hilgemann) called this option, “an insult to the high calling of pastoral ministry.” These voices rightly give a variety of reasons: the Holy Spirit won’t be involved, the message will be vapid and generalized, and the preacher won’t grow as a person, to name a few.
But when it comes to how else AI might be used in sermon prep, opinions are mixed, and at Logos, quite positive. Mark Barnes, who serves as project manager for the Logos app, writes, “It would be a mistake for Christians to shun [AI] technology and turn our backs on tools that could help us discover deeper insights into God’s Word.” Similarly, Ward explains that Logos’ use of AI is not intended as, “a replacement for hard work, but as a facilitator of it.”
Yet these positive generalities hide an unaddressed question. Ward states, “The reason preachers shouldn’t have AI write their sermons is that pushing through ‘preacher’s block’ seems to be necessary to growing as writers and thinkers”, and yet Barnes explains that the purpose of AI Sermon Assistant is, “to help pastors through creative blocks.” Both Ward and Barnes—writing as Logos employees—make significant claims to represent Logos’s thinking on the matter. So which is it? Is it ethical and wise for a preacher to use AI to get around ‘creative blocks’, or not? Given that Barnes advertises this as the primary purpose of Sermon Assistant, the question is not insignificant.
Not only that, but when I began to explore Sermon Assistant’s functionality, a second question emerged. Is the AI Sermon Assistant’s advertised use—breaking creative blocks—even its designed use?
These two ambiguities raise the possibility that a pulpit-rotting software is now being cheerfully marketed to any preacher who can afford it. In response, the rest of this article is my attempt to answer two questions: What is Logos’ Sermon Assistant? And is its use ethical?
What is Sermon Assistant?
What is Sermon Assistant really built to do? As mentioned above, it can spit out illustrations, applications, discussion questions, and even sermon outlines. But how were these things designed to be used?
Mark Barnes explains, “We’re developing [AI] tools to help users when they have creative blocks… Our Sermon Assistant is a good example of this.” Two external reviewers echo the same idea. Tanner Thetford states, “Now, they make it very clear that you’re not meant to copy and paste these illustrations right there in your sermon. They’re only meant to facilitate your own thoughts surrounding the topic.”[1] And Hilgemann says that Logos encourages pastors, “not to use AI as a robotic substitute for their God-given calling to write human sermons inspired by the Holy Spirit,” linking to Barnes’ article as an example of this supposed company ethos.
1. Time stamp: 7:51–8:00 in the linked video.
However, some official company training materials give nearly the opposite line. The most prominent link on my Logos Pro dashboard is to a video in which the narrator explains, “If you are happy with [an AI generated outline] you can copy it for pasting elsewhere or insert it into the sermon document. You can now use this as the basis for your sermon and modify, delete, or insert content as required.”[2] Similarly, a training article states that you can, “Copy the outline into a word processor… for further development.”[3] This is a shockingly straightforward encouragement to do with Sermon Assistant exactly what publicity said it wasn’t designed for: copy the AI generated content into your manuscript and just go from there—let Logos do the work for you, and just fill in the actual sermon text yourself.
2. Logos, “How to Simplify Prep With AI Tools,” accessed 28 October, 2024. This video was replaced with another training video. The replacement video still says that the AI generated outline is intended for use as “a starting point” for a sermon. It also says that the prompts provided under each outline point are, “suggestions for further study,” not intended to replace the pastor’s responsibility to write the sermon. However, even a cursory read shows that they are not study suggestions, but writing prompts. Logos, “Welcome to Logos Pro,” accessed 18 November, 2024.
3. Another training article reads more vaguely: “Outlines mode . . . generates starter outline ideas.” While less direct, this still gives the sense of something a bit different than ‘breaking creative blocks.’ The training article implies that one gets started by generating a few outlines, picking a favorite, and modifying it from there as opposed to using the tool after substantial work has been done. Logos Desktop and Web Training, “What can I do with Sermon Assistant?” accessed 28 October 2024.
To judge between these conflicting messages, I decided to look at the software itself: what function does it appear to be designed for? Two examples will make the point.
First, the outline generator produces far more than just an outline. Under separate headings, it summarizes the passage, gives a pointer to Christ, lists a big idea, provides recommended lines of study as you prepare, and more. Only after all of this does it provide the actual outline, where it also supplies a paragraph under each point suggesting how you might fill the point in. This is not a ‘creative block’ breaker at all. It is an AI-generated starting point for preaching virtually any passage of Scripture or topic of theology.
Second, there are “copy” and “insert” buttons at the bottom of each piece of AI-generated content (outlines, illustrations, and applications). One click automatically slides the content straight into your manuscript. The point of this functionality is clear enough.
Perhaps all of this is simply what Barnes and others meant by, “overcoming creative blocks.” If so, however, it is far less pleasant to think about it in specific terms: thousands of pastors using AI-generated exegesis[4] and outlines as their starting points, vapidly “personalizing” illustrations produced by a non-entity, and then following the random study prompts so as to appear quasi-intelligent in the pulpit.
4. Or it might be more accurate to say, “AI generated approximations of exegesis,” since LLM algorithms do not actually conduct exegesis, but rather use mindless word probability to approximate expected human speech.
But does all this mean that AI Sermon Assistant is unethical? Or merely undesirable?
The Nature of Preaching
The answer lies in the nature of preaching. What is preaching? A full definition is beyond the scope of this article. However, it goes without saying that faithful preachers are those who, “preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2) from a life of studious work in the text (2 Tim. 2:7, 15, Ezra 7:10).
The basic conflict between AI Sermon Assistant and faithful preaching comes from the nature of both the biblical text and the sermon: for both, structure is the vehicle of meaning. To understand my text, I must wrestle with its structure—why did the author put it together the way he did? What was he trying to communicate? Until I can answer these questions (at a minimum), I don’t have a true grasp of the passage.
Likewise, once I’ve toiled my way to the main point of my sermon, my next step must be to craft an outline which will carry this point to the congregation. In other words, the structure of my sermon’s outline is the argument I’ll be making to communicate my main point. Thus, my outline is inseparable from my main point. Nor is this unique to sermons—in nearly every form of literature or oratory, the structure is the vehicle of the message.
Now consider Sermon Assistant. Its crown-jewel feature—the outline generator—neatly cuts me off from both structures. First, its product approximates a day’s worth of hard work in the preacher’s study: a summary of the passage, a connection to Christ, a big idea, and an application. Let me state it plainly: if I’ve wrestled sufficiently with the text’s structure, what the outline generator produces is worthless to me. Thus, if I find the AI-generated exegesis and outline useful, it is because I haven’t understood the text.
Second, it provides a structure for my sermon—and the structure is the vehicle of the message. So even if I fill in that automated structure with my own words, the main emphasis will be a product of AI, and not of my own work. I will become a biological cog in a virtual machine, a flesh-and-blood mouthpiece for a non-entity, to whom I have handed the shepherd’s rod and staff which were entrusted to me by the Great Shepherd.
The Ethics of AI and Ministry
So then: is Logos’ AI Sermon Assistant ethical? No.
If used as a ‘creative block breaker,’ it at least relieves me of the responsibility to wrestle with the text—and the Lord—enough to clarify my thinking and teaching. And if used as designed, it short-circuits the process of sermon prep entirely. In either case, it is an abdication of duty.
Sermon Assistant is not the only GenAI product currently on offer to the Church. For example, megachurch CEO Ron Carpenter has created an app where users can text or call an AI-generated facsimile of Carpenter’s voice to receive pastoral counsel or prayer. Or, Bible Toolbox (a rival product to Sermon Assistant) offers not only AI-generated sermon outlines, but also AI-generated family devotionals, Sunday School lessons, and responsive prayer guides. In the days and years ahead, believers are likely to encounter more and more products like these—products which allow both shepherds and sheep to pass off the trials and joys of wrestling with the Word, and of patiently teaching it to others. Such products promise efficiency, but will in reality deliver spiritual, relational, and intellectual atrophy to churches that use them. Pastors, it is up to us to reject these products, and to teach our flocks to do the same.
