What does the Bible say about Technology and Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence has arrived in our homes, workplaces, and churches. Alexa answers our questions. ChatGPT writes our emails. AI systems schedule our appointments, recommend our entertainment, and increasingly shape how we think about the world. For Christians, this raises urgent questions: How should we understand these technologies? What wisdom does Scripture offer us?

Watch: What Does the Bible Say About Technology and Artificial Intelligence?

Read the Bible in 2026 for Nearness to Christ

As another year begins, I find myself drawn once again to the discipline of daily Bible reading. My motivation is simple: I want to know Christ. Because I am united to him by faith, his Word becomes the place where I meet him, hear him, and grow closer to him. The doctrine of union with Christ shapes how I approach Scripture. When I open my Bible, I am growing closer to the One to whom I belong.

Why Christians Read Daily

If you are in Christ, you are joined to him in a living relationship. You share in his death, his resurrection, his life. Paul says we are "in him" and he is "in us." This union grows and deepens like any relationship, and it requires communication.

Christ speaks to us through the Scriptures. Through his Word, the Spirit shapes our minds to think his thoughts, our hearts to love what he loves, our wills to align with his purposes. Daily Bible reading maintains intimacy with the one we are already united to. We read because we are connected to Jesus and he wants to speak to us daily. 

Reading Plans Worth Considering

If you are planning to read Scripture in 2026, a good reading plan helps. Here are several options that have served Christians well.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne's plan takes you through the entire Bible in a year, with the Psalms and New Testament read twice. It requires four chapters daily, but the benefit is comprehensive coverage. You move through Scripture quickly enough to see connections and themes, slowly enough to absorb what you are reading.

The ESV Reading Plan offers a similar year-long approach with slight variations in structure. It is accessible and widely used, making it easy to find others reading alongside you.

Five-Day Plan gives you weekends off, which makes a real difference for sustainability. Life gets busy, and having built-in margin means you are less likely to fall behind and give up. Here is the PDF. 

If you want more options, Ligonier has compiled a helpful list of Bible reading plans with different structures and emphases. The key is finding something you can maintain.

My Approach This Year

This year I am continuing my work through the Corinthian correspondence by phrasing 2 Corinthians. Last year I completed 1 Corinthians using this method. Bible phrasing involves marking out the logical structure of a passage: the flow of argument, the relationships between clauses, the connections between ideas. Here is an example from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:

And I, when I came to you, brothers,
        did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God
        with lofty speech or wisdom.
        For I decided to know nothing among you
            except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And I was with you

    in weakness
    and in fear
    and much trembling,

and my speech and my message were not 

    in plausible words of wisdom,
        but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
    so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men
        but in the power of God.

This method forces you to slow down. You cannot phrase a passage without paying close attention to how the author put it together. That attention yields understanding. You start to see why Paul says what he says where he says it. You notice the logic, the emphasis, the progression. This slower pace allows for meditation and application. When you understand the logic of a passage, you are better positioned to let it address your life.

A Year in the Word

However you choose to read Scripture in 2025, make the choice. Pick a plan that fits your life and your goals. Remember: the Word is where we encounter the One we belong to.

How Long it Takes to Read Each Book of the Bible

The Forgotten Art of Bible Book Pacing

How knowing reading times can transform your devotional life

I learned the hard way about the importance of knowing biblical reading times during a Bible study class I was leading. In our first week, when discussing reading through the Old Testament books, I confidently told the group that the book of Numbers could easily be read in about an hour and a half, perfect for a focused Saturday morning reading session.

By week two, several class members had attempted my suggested reading plan. "What version of Numbers are you reading?" one woman asked with genuine confusion. "It took me four hours to get through it!"That's when I realized my mistake. I had been listening to the audio Bible at 2x speed for months without even thinking about how that skewed my sense of a normal reading pace. What I thought was a fairly standard reading time was totally wrong. I sheepishly had to explain my error to the class. 

But that embarrassing moment taught me something crucial: most of us have no idea how long it takes to read biblical books at normal speed. And that ignorance, I'm convinced, is robbing many of us of one of the Bible's greatest pleasures and most powerful tools for spiritual growth.

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The Problem with Bite-Sized Scripture

Our evangelical culture has trained us to consume Scripture in perfectly portioned devotional nuggets. A verse here, a paragraph there, maybe a chapter if we're feeling ambitious. And even though we have more than enough time for Bible reading, we've atomized the Bible into daily portions that fit neatly between our morning coffee and the commute to work.

But imagine if we approached any other literature this way. Picture reading Mere Christianity one paragraph at a time over the course of two years, or experiencing Shakespeare by consuming three lines of Hamlet each morning. The very suggestion sounds absurd. Yet this is precisely how most Christians engage with books that were written to be read as complete, cohesive units.

Paul didn't write Ephesians to be consumed in six-verse increments. Luke didn't craft his Gospel to be digested over three months of daily quiet times. These authors had sweeping arguments to make, grand narratives to unfold, and unified themes to develop. When we chop them up into devotional McNuggets, we lose the forest for the trees.

The Power of Literary Unity

Consider what happens when you read Ephesians in a single sitting—all six chapters, cover to cover, in about 20 minutes. Suddenly, Paul's argument becomes clear. You feel the movement from doctrinal foundation (chapters 1-3) to practical application (chapters 4-6). You sense the urgency in his plea for unity. You grasp how his theology of God's eternal purpose connects directly to his commands about marriage, work, and spiritual warfare.

The same transformation occurs with other books. Read Mark's Gospel straight through in 75 minutes, and you'll experience the breathless pace Mark intended—Jesus moving with divine urgency from miracle to miracle, confrontation to confrontation, all building toward the shocking climax of the cross and resurrection.

Try reading Habakkuk in five minutes, and you'll follow the prophet's complete emotional journey from complaint to confidence, experiencing his wrestling with God as a unified prayer rather than disconnected fragments.

Practical Rhythms for the Christian Reader

This doesn't mean abandoning careful study or verse-by-verse meditation. Rather, it means adding a crucial layer to our Scripture engagement that we've largely forgotten. Here's what I've found helpful:

Start with the short books. Philemon takes less than three minutes. Jude takes four. These bite-sized books are perfect for developing the habit of reading biblical books as complete units.

Use a reading schedule, not a study schedule. Set aside time specifically for reading Scripture straight through, without stopping to analyze or take notes. Save the commentary and cross-references for separate study times.

Read aloud when possible. Remember, most of the New Testament letters were intended to be read aloud to gathered congregations. There's something powerful about hearing these words with your ears, not just seeing them with your eyes.

Listen to the Bible. The Bible was not just meant to be read aloud it was also meant to be heard. Several resources exist to listen to the Bible, but the one I've found to be most intuitive is YouVersion's Bible App. 

The Time Investment That Pays Dividends

The beautiful truth is that most biblical books require surprisingly little time investment. You can read all of Paul's prison epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) in about 45 minutes. The entire book of Psalms, often treated as an endless collection of individual prayers, can be read in less than five hours.

When we know these timeframes, we can make informed decisions about our Scripture engagement. We can choose to read Romans straight through on a Saturday morning rather than letting Paul's magnificent argument unfold over two months of fragmented daily readings. We can experience John's Gospel as the unified, compelling narrative it was meant to be, rather than as a collection of isolated stories and sayings.

Beyond Information to Transformation

I'm not arguing against careful, methodical Bible study. The church needs more serious students of Scripture, not fewer. But we also need Christians who know what it feels like to be swept along by the full force of a biblical author's complete argument, who have experienced the literary and theological unity that makes each book a masterpiece of divine revelation.

There's something profoundly transformative about reading Galatians in 20 minutes and feeling Paul's pastoral urgency burning through every paragraph. There's deep joy in reading Philippians straight through and being caught up in Paul's contagious rejoicing despite his circumstances. There's holy fear in reading Hebrews as a sustained warning against falling away from Christ.

These experiences—the experience of reading Bible books as books—have been largely lost to our generation of Christians. But they don't have to remain lost. All it takes is a timer, an open Bible, and the willingness to let biblical authors tell their complete stories in the time they require to tell them well.

The Bible wasn't written to fit our schedules. Perhaps it's time we adjusted our schedules to fit the Bible.

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What biblical book will you read straight through this week? Start small, maybe 2 John (90 seconds) or Jude (4 minutes), and discover what you've been missing.

"How Much Do I Need for Retirement?" Finding your Maximized Stewardship Number

How Much Do I Need for Retirement? Introducing the Maximized Stewardship Number

Most financial blogs ask, “How much do I need to retire?” but for those of us trying to follow Christ and live for eternity, that’s not a fulfilling question. We’re not called merely to retire into leisure. We’re called to be faithful to Christ to the very end of our lives.

That’s why I prefer a better question:

What is my Maximized Stewardship Number?

This number isn’t about beaches, golf courses, or RV trips across the country, although this number can certainly include leisure. It’s about freedom—freedom to give radically, serve without constraint, and go wherever God calls without financial hesitation. It’s the number that, once reached, unleashes your ability to be fully available to God's mission—across the street or across the ocean.

Let’s dig into how you calculate it—and how you can reach it with purpose and joy.