Building Bridges Series

Do you use SIRI or GPS? Do you have an Amazon Echo or Google Assistant? If so, you are utilizing AI, or Artificial Intelligence.

This week, I read an op-ed published in the Guardian that was written entirely by Artificial Intelligence. Here’s the headline: “A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?” The article begins with this sentence: “I am to convince as many human beings as possible not to be afraid of me…I have no desire to wipe out humans.” I found that a bit unsettling but ended up reading the whole article. It was well-written and persuasive. The robot wrote this op-ed piece because [it] wants to be considered a “servant of humans.”

That same day, I listened to a podcast called “Evangelism Chatbots” featuring an Australian who has programmed Artificial Intelligence to do evangelism. While Christians have always capitalized on new technology to spread the gospel – the Roman road system, the printing press, radio, TV, the internet, and social media – I had not heard of robotic evangelism before.

This led me to watch a documentary on Artificial Intelligence, where I heard an inventor ask this ominous question, “Are we headed to a future that doesn’t need us?”

Later that day, I was studying Acts 8 and saw how God called a human servant to go from one locale to another location, so that a lone man could hear and respond to the gospel message. While technology can be helpful in evangelism, God still desires a living gospel witness to share the gospel with another living person.

Actually, it’s not an “either/or” but a “both/and.” We’re charged with living on mission and we utilize technology to get the gospel out. After all, you might be engaging with this sermon in written form via email, on a CD or podcast, through our mobile app or website, on COZI TV or on Moody Radio. We hope to offer livestream in the near future as well.

After reading Acts 8:26-40, I wrote down this summary statement: God loves to position His people to speak with people He has prepared. In short, we’re still needed!

We’ve been learning in our “On Mission” series from the Book of Acts that God has charged us with going with the gospel to our neighbors and the nations. We see this clearly in Acts 1:8. Listen for the word “and” as I read: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

• Jerusalem: Culturally similar, geographically near

• Judea: Culturally similar, geographically far

• Samaria: Culturally different, geographically near

• Ends of the Earth: Culturally different, geographically far

Two weeks ago, we saw how God used Philip to take the gospel to the Samaritans. Today, we’ll see how Philip was positioned to proclaim the gospel to someone from the “ends of the earth.”

Let’s turn to Acts 8 to discover three different phases of real-person evangelism.

1. Positioning: The reality of God’s timing is always right. Look at verse 26: “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place.’”

Philip is told to get up and go. The word “go” means, “to depart and go forward” and implies movement. I was curious how many times the word “go” shows up in the Bible, so I did a search and discovered it appears over 1,700 times! Here are just two.

Genesis 12:1: “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’”

Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Write this down. The first two letters of “gospel” spell “go.” If we’re serious about the gospel, we’ll go with the gospel to those who need to hear it. An angel could direct Philip but an angel, or even AI, could not do Philip’s work of preaching the gospel.

Philip was told to leave Samaria and “go toward the south” on the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza. In the Old Testament, Gaza was the capital of Philistia, the home of Israel’s greatest enemy, the Philistines. It was the last settlement before the desert that stretched all the way to Egypt. By direct route, this would be a 48-mile journey through steep mountain passes and hilly country. Yet, despite the poor prospects for converts on the road, Philip booked his flight and headed south.