“This is the moment to reevaluate what you do and how you do it,” [1] wrote a dean at Princeton University to its faculty this summer about artificial intelligence. Though he was addressing a secular university, not a seminary, his words resonate deeply with me. Something very big is happening, like I’ve never seen in 20 years of teaching as a New Testament professor.

Much student writing has suddenly become near professional quality, yet more and more students’ assignments sound similar in both style and content. It is becoming difficult to hear students’ distinct voices or to see what they themselves can do in interpretation. Genuine assessment has become almost impossible. I wonder if AI, instead of only being a powerful tool, is taking over.

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While I recognize that other aspects of my work, such as mentoring and encouraging students, remain stable, I suspect that the academic training which I’ve been doing with students is now threatened.

At Arab Baptist Theological Seminary and other seminaries, we are finding our way in this new world – between AI’s efficient access to vast amounts of information and the slow, sometimes messy, formation of people’s character and skills for ministry.

Many assume that AI simply makes learning more efficient. Let me share why it is not so simple. Seminary is not about speedy access to a wealth of information. When I first began teaching, I filled lectures with information. But over time I realized that while students could repeat facts, it did not mean they were growing as interpreters of the Bible. I saw that students need the experience of discovering for themselves what is present in Scripture; and they need to describe what they see with their own voices. I had to shift my approach. So I learned to ask open questions with students, opening the text of Scripture with them, and sending them to the text, where they could see things for themselves.

There’s a world of difference between reading about the Bible and encountering the Bible itself. When we meet God in Scripture, and are confronted with truth from the Bible about ourselves, the content sticks with us. When we read the Bible for ourselves, and struggle to understand and apply what’s there on the page, the biblical text becomes our own. It is more convicting and more inspiring when we discover truth for ourselves in Scripture itself. Second-hand interpretation, whether from a commentary, a professor, or AI, lacks the same transformative power.

[destacate]Theological education is not mainly about transmitting lots of correct information but forming and shaping believers with certain skills and relationships, including a vital relationship with the Bible[/destacate]I once asked a class why we spend so much time learning to interpret different kinds of books in the Bible. A student replied, “Because once you get the skills, you’ve been empowered.” Exactly. Our goal is not to prepare students to depend on experts but to form them with skills to interpret the Bible faithfully. The interpretive instincts they develop will stay with them, shaping their relationship with God and positioning them to share truth with others in a way that draws them also into a deep relationship with God through Scripture. What’s at stake is genuine preparation for ministry.

So theological education is not mainly about transmitting lots of correct information but forming and shaping believers with certain skills and relationships, including a vital relationship with the Bible.

Now, however, the world of technology has given a research assistant to our students without regard for where they are on their journey toward becoming mature interpreters of the Bible. In my courses, I tend to assign open-ended questions: What does Mark teach about the kingdom of God and its relationship to Jesus? How does Acts connect the Holy Spirit and the spread of the gospel? What does 2 Corinthians reveal about suffering and authentic ministry? Answering such questions has required careful reading, reflection, and struggle. Now, AI can answer such questions quickly and rather accurately. But when students rely on it without wrestling with Scripture itself to develop their answers, they bypass what could have been a powerfully formative encounter with God’s written word. Students save time, and they find information, but they miss a transformative experience.

I too use AI tools in my study, and I’m excited by how helpful and efficient they are. Yet they work best when used by someone already shaped by years of training, when one’s skills and relationship with the Bible are essentially in place.

[destacate] To use AI responsibly, students need a deep familiarity with Scripture, a love for it, a sense of how to interpret the flow of its various forms of literature, and a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit[/destacate]Today, if our students wish, they can delegate close reading of the Bible to an AI assistant. Students win time but they lose a chance to grow toward becoming someone with a first-hand relationship with the Bible and instincts for interpreting it with discernment and wisdom. I’m left wondering how this might affect their ministry and their relationship with God.

So I’m asking anew: what exactly am I doing as a teacher, and how should I be doing it now? What do students need in order to use AI wisely? How can we help students supervise this powerful assistant so it plays a productive role in their growth instead of allowing it to take over and do more than it should?

To use AI responsibly, students need a deep familiarity with Scripture, a love for it, a sense of how to interpret the texture and flow of its various forms of literature, and even a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and their own contexts as they interpret. They need the ability to describe what they find in their own words. If they rely too heavily on AI, they hand over more and more interpretive agency to it and thus miss the genuine education that could shape them into mature interpreters. Then, ultimately, they don’t get the skills, they lack self-confidence that they can understand the Bible, and they don’t quite feel at home with the Bible. A great loss.

When I shared such thoughts with ABTS faculty colleagues, one responded: “An additional long-term question I’ve been wrestling with is not just how will this impact our students’ personal growth and relationship with God through his word, but what will be the impact on the next generation if they are trained by people who didn’t adequately form these skills and relationships?” Yes, indeed.

Perhaps, with time, we can train AI tools to assist in student formation – to behave like patient teaching assistants prompting students to observe the goals of a given course, prodding them to observe Scripture directly and reflect personally, rather than doing the work for them.

[destacate]Trying to save time tends not to be what most helps our relationships with other people; why would it be any different with God and the Bible?[/destacate]For now, though, I am exploring how to reshape assignments. Instead of writing polished essays, students might narrate their interpretive process with passages of Scripture. Like when math teachers require students to “show your work”. This puts students in more touch with their thinking processes, and slowing down like this can also help them make additional connections along the way. What they write might look like a lab report or journal: what they noticed, what questions arose, how their understanding developed as they studied the passage. That shift could preserve the struggle and discovery that foster genuine growth.

I recently read that a Cornell University professor said that he has a hard time prioritizing his long-term interests over his short-term interests, so he doesn’t blame students for using AI. Yet he also said: “I do think that over time, people are going to have to figure out that it’s actually better for them not to use AI in ways that replace practicing hard skills, because that’s the only way you build them.” [2 ] I agree.

How do we help students value long-term growth over short-term efficiency, even though it involves much more struggle? How do we help them care more about stewarding their skills, and developing such character qualities as patience and perseverance, than about saving time? How do we help students see that the trade-off of saving time ultimately undermines the very goal they’re striving for – to serve God and others well?

Interpreting the Bible and learning to think theologically has little relationship to efficiency. These have to do with our relationship with Scripture and with God. Trying to save time tends not to be what most helps our relationships with other people; why would it be any different with God and the Bible?

Paul told the Galatians he was in the anguish of childbirth until Christ would be formed in them (Gal 4:19). For all of us who train others for Christian ministry, may we not lose heart but keep striving to learn together what genuinely formative theological education should look like in the current era.

I have shared where I am in my process of dealing with AI as a teacher. What has this brought to your mind? We at ABTS welcome discussion.

Dustin Ellington, Associate Professor of New Testament. Before joining the ABTS faculty, he taught at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo and at Justo Mwale University in Lusaka, Zambia. 

This article was first published on ABTS blog and re-published with permission. 

Notes

1. https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025/10/princeton-news-broadfocus-artificial-intelligence-humanities-professors. Accessed Oct 6, 2025.

2. https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/10/ai-won-t-replace-the-university-what-cornell-professors-have-to-say-about-artificial-intelligence-on-campus. Accessed October 28, 2025.

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