Faith and AI  ·  By John Moelker, a pastor who builds AI

Is it cheating to use AI to write sermons?

I am a pastor, and I build AI for a living, so I get asked this by other pastors more than almost anything else, usually quietly, with a little guilt already attached. It is a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer rather than either a shrug or a panic. Here it is, with the line drawn as clearly as I can draw it.

What is not cheating

Using AI to help you prepare is not cheating, any more than using a commentary, a concordance, or a study Bible is cheating. Preachers have always leaned on tools and the work of others. These uses are fine:

• Researching the background of a passage, or surfacing how a theme runs through Scripture.
• Checking a Greek or Hebrew word, or finding illustrations and cross-references.
• Tightening an outline, or asking it to check whether you have said something the church has long considered an error.

That is a faster library, not a substitute preacher. If AI carries some of the research load so you have more time in the text and on your knees, it has helped you do your job, not done it for you.

Where it becomes cheating

The honest word is harder here, so let me say it plainly. It becomes cheating at the point where the machine does the part that was yours, and you hide it. There are two real problems, and neither is about the technology.

The first is deception. If you let AI write the sermon and you stand up and deliver it as the fruit of your own study and prayer, you have not committed the sin of using a tool. You have committed the older sin of dishonesty. John Piper put it sharply, saying he is appalled by the practice and that a pastor who has ChatGPT write his first draft should tell his people plainly that AI composed the word for them that morning (Christian Post). Whether or not you find that overstated, the principle is right: where honesty is owed, hiding the machine's hand is a lie.

The second is formation, and it matters even more.

God changes the preacher before He changes the church, and the change happens in the work AI offers to do for you.

The point of sermon preparation was never only to produce a polished manuscript. It was to drive you into the text and onto your knees, to let the Word do its work on you before you ask it to do its work on anyone else. Paul did not come "with lofty speech or wisdom," but in weakness and trembling, so that faith would rest "in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Ezra "set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach" (Ezra 7:10), in that order. If you outsource the wrestling, you may get a competent talk and skip the very thing that was meant to change you. That is not cheating on a test. It is skipping the part where God forms the man who preaches.

Can AI even write a good sermon?

It can write a competent one. It cannot preach. A sermon is not just well-arranged true information; it is a person heralding a truth he has understood, felt, believed, and been changed by. An AI has understood nothing, felt nothing, and been changed by nothing. It can spell the doctrine. It cannot mean it. That is why even a flawless AI manuscript, delivered by someone who did not do the work, tends to land hollow. The people can often feel the difference between a man telling them what he has seen and a man reading what a machine assembled.

A clear rule for pastors

So here is the line I would hold if I were preaching weekly, and it is the line I build into the tools I make:

• Let AI assist your study. Do not let it do your study.
• Do the praying and the wrestling yourself. That work is not the overhead of preaching. It is the heart of it.
• Write in your own voice, from what God has shown you. Use AI to sharpen, not to author.
• Be honest. If AI did more than assist, your people deserve to know.

Keep that, and you can use these tools with a clear conscience. "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2). The word is still yours to preach. Let the tool carry your books, never your calling.

Frequently asked questions

Is it cheating to use AI to write sermons?

Using AI for research, outlines, or checking your work is not cheating. The danger is honesty and formation. If a pastor lets AI do the praying, wrestling, and writing that were his to do, and presents it as his own spiritual labor, that is deceptive, and it skips the work God uses to shape the preacher. Use it to assist preparation, never to replace it.

Should a pastor tell the congregation they used AI?

If AI merely helped with research or editing, a disclosure is not usually needed, the same as using a commentary. But if AI substantially wrote the sermon, honesty requires the pastor to acknowledge it rather than pass it off as his own study and prayer. John Piper has argued for transparency for exactly this reason.

Can AI write a good sermon?

AI can produce a competent, well-organized sermon text, but it cannot do what preaching actually requires: to have understood the passage, felt its weight, prayed over it, and delivered it as a person who believes it. A sermon is a person heralding a truth he has been changed by, and a machine has been changed by nothing.

Is it a sin for a pastor to use ChatGPT?

No, using ChatGPT is not in itself a sin for a pastor. It can help with research, admin, and communication. It becomes sinful when it is used to deceive, or when it replaces the prayer, study, and formation that are the heart of the pastoral calling. The tool is not the issue; how it is used is.