Artificial Holy Spirit Intelligence

Show open, 1,000 Balloons promo, docket, and guest intro

The produced opening voiceover (diarized as ) gives way to Ben's live start from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. Ben promotes 1,000 Balloons, the new steampunk-ish novel by his daughter Emma and Mike's daughter Grace about an inventing family and an airship disaster, on sale at 1000balloons.com in time for Christmas; Emma designed the cover, Boova already bought his copy, and Ben jokes he was promised a higher number of balloons. Ben sets the docket: For One For All on Jeremiah 29:11, Carey Nieuwhof's claim that 70% of pastors believe the Holy Spirit can work through AI, Boova's Ask the Pastor on Acts 8:14-17 ("what kind of pickle I'm trying to make"), Dear LFTP advice, and introduces special guest Pastor Gabe Clawson, who showed up with a music stand, a Bible, and notes.

The 70% claim: can the Holy Spirit work through AI?

• Can God / the Holy Spirit work through artificial intelligence?

Ben asks for Mike's reaction to Carey Nieuwhof's claim that 70% of pastors believe God or the Holy Spirit can work through artificial intelligence. Mike, who drove in with Gabe discussing it, says he probably believes it with a lot of ifs, picturing a disconnected teenager whose main interaction is through AI, and notes Nieuwhof is a big deal in circles Ben and Dan travel in. The table agrees the headline number is unsurprising once framed as whether God is restrained from working through AI at all.

Donkeys, mystery, and "informed mystery"

After a merged-floor handoff ("you go ahead, Dan"), Dan argues God can speak through a donkey, so AI is not off-limits, but he doesn't trust most pastors to actually listen to the Holy Spirit amid busy schedules. Ben reframes the question as how we recognize God's voice, warning against "informed mystery": AI feels awe-inspiring because we don't understand its machinations, but its intake is compiled human thought, not God's influence, so mistaking human mystery for God's mystery is risky.

Sticks and stones; testing AI words against Scripture

Ben pivots from AI's confident filters into his family's Thanksgiving sticks-and-stones practice: stones are big retold stories of God's faithfulness, sticks (popsicle sticks) are recent smaller answers to prayer, many surfaced through his wife's prayer journaling. He argues AI "words" must be submitted for refinement like anything else: it is fine to act on clear Scriptural patterns such as caring for widows and orphans, but untested "God told me" claims dodge the iron-sharpening-iron of community and can drift outside God's revealed character.

The Bereans and the Luke 4:7 desk calendar

Ben says he loves the Bereans, and Gabe picks it up: they trusted the message but verified it first, which is exactly what people skipping Scripture for AI answers fail to do. Gabe tells the desk-calendar story: a July 3 page quoted Luke 4:7 in the King James Version, "If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine," which looks beautiful until you notice that's Satan quoting to Jesus. He adds that he was once convicted by an AI-generated article about why AI should not write sermons, and lands where the room does: of course God could speak through AI, so verify, trust, and pray regardless.

AI clickbait, responsible use, and the deception problem

Boova flags obviously AI-generated Christian clickbait ("the top 10 reasons you need to understand why God actually hates you") that people bring him from YouTube Shorts and Facebook reels without ever opening Scripture, joking about Mufasa saying things that weren't in the Lion King. Ben describes his own responsible AI use for 1 Samuel commentary research and wedding transitions, always demanding sources and checking them. Dan tells the Mulan 2 story: praying through a theater visit with his four-year-old grandson after sensing the film's music nudging kids to leave their families, because AI can sound spiritual and wholesome without being from God. Ben closes by insisting deceit isn't only pointy-tailed-devil deceit: well-intentioned falsity is still falsity, and "your heart can be in the right place, and you're still a perpetuator of deceit."

AI Bible Theater, Balaam's donkey, and the Gen Z Bible

Mike's "stay out of that AI" gets Gabe's reply: "Or use it all the time like I do. Or do it like Ben." Gabe recommends the hilarious AI-generated Gen Z Bible for a laugh (Luke's Gabriel account rendered as "sigma and scuba dee"), noting it obviously doesn't match the Greek. Ben remembers the AI Bible Theater episode he and Boova did on Balaam's donkey as a two-person play, plus the bit where they got advice from Lamech, and promises to bring the segment back before moving to For One For All.

For One For All: reading Jeremiah 29:11 in exile

• Is Jeremiah 29:11 a promise for one person, for one people, or for everybody?

Mike kicks off For One For All and Gabe reads Jeremiah 29:11 from the NASB 1977: "For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." Ben frames the game: is the verse for one person, one people, or everybody? Boova, who texted Mike after reading Jeremiah 29 that morning, gives the exile context: God speaks to Israelites in Babylon promising return after seventy years, and warns against treating God as a genie for business ventures. Dan offers the T-shirt mental exercise: if Stephen bought a Jeremiah 29:11 shirt in Jerusalem and was stoned that day, would he feel cheated? Ben argues the verse addresses a people, not individuals, paralleling the Philistines' capture of the ark in 1 Samuel 4 and God's restoration of the relationship; he and Dan land on the "loosey goosey" side against Mike, Boova, and Gabe, with Psalm 139's "knit me together in my mother's womb" as the kind of personal promise that does hold.

False prophets, John 1, and prospering in exile

Dan notes the verses before Jeremiah 29:11 warn against false prophets, and Boova recounts Jeremiah confronting the prophet who promised a short exile and died (misnaming Hananiah as "Shemaiah"), adding "I'll give you Jeremiah 29:11 if you take the rest of Jeremiah," including chapter 30's turn and the soiled loincloth of Jeremiah 13. Gabe reads the Old Testament through John 1, seeing Jesus in the exiles' hope, and through 1 Peter 2:11: believers are sojourners and exiles whose promised city is fulfilled at Jesus's return. Boova cautions that without grounding, word-linking "exile" across passages steers people wrong. Mike says God defines "prosper": Paul got beaten across eighteen cities so Gentiles could hear the gospel, and hope looks different in America than at the slave brickyards in Pakistan. Gabe adds that telling Ezekiel "I have a plan to prosper you" before the dung-baked bread would have deepened the disappointment: God's plan is bigger than ours.

Faithfulness, prosperity, and the complaint line

Dan points to the verse's original hearers, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel: offered the royal buffet, they asked for vegetables, and the furnace didn't look prosperous, yet Daniel did prosper through obedience. Ben lands the principle: "prosperity is a result of faithfulness," and the faithful don't mistake worldly prosperity for what Jesus offers; peace comes through engaging the kingdom's work, not spectating. Boova defines the real calamity: grabbing the verse to get God to carry you to a point where you no longer need Him. Ben plugs the Bob Eisenlauer complaint line, (515) 517-0085, for feedback on the AI discussion and future For One For All verses, then tosses to Ask the Pastor.

Ask the Pastor: Boova's Acts 8 baptism question

• Do people baptized in the name of Jesus still need laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17)?

Ben introduces Ask the Pastor, jokingly sponsored by 1,000 Balloons, and Boova (after an audiobook pitch where he reads the whole novel himself: "God has a plan for this book, and it's me") reads Acts 8:14-17: the Samaritans had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus but had not received the Holy Spirit until Peter and John laid hands on them. He admits it freaked him out: he has recently baptized people and wants to do it right, and he recognizes Acts describes the church's beginnings, not necessarily a standing pattern. Ben reframes the split as the broader denominational question of when the Holy Spirit comes upon people, then hands it to Dan and Gabe.

Acts 8 answers: descriptive, not prescriptive

After Boova's merged-floor handoff ("Dan, do you have... you wanna take it first?"), Dan gives his simple answer: Acts is often descriptive rather than prescriptive, and this aberration served Peter and John as much as the Samaritans, an apostolic authentication of the new Gentile mission, not a standing pattern of laying on hands. Boova layers in Simon the magician's attempt to buy the power, and Ben says "I think Dan's right," adding Peter as the one unlocking the doors into Judea and Samaria. The table works through related texts: the sons of Sceva ("Sikwas... Skivas... Skolas," consult the Blue Letter Bible man), and Ben's conflation of Peter raising Tabitha with Jesus's "Talitha koum" (Mark 5:41). Boova lands comfortable that his baptisms stand without a second laying-on-of-hands step.

Baptizo, the pickle, and the Ethiopian eunuch

• What does baptizo mean: is the water or the immersion and transformation the important part of baptism?

After a merged handoff ("Go ahead, Gabe"), Gabe argues the dunking symbolizes but doesn't confer: baptizo means immersed, and the second-century Greek pickle recipe shows the word means changed by what you're immersed in, not merely washed. Boova agrees the power is the Holy Spirit's, not H2O's, but cautions with the Ethiopian eunuch ("the Enoch, Ethiopian" in a Dan slip): the eunuch himself said "why not right now?" at the water, so the act matters as public declaration. Dan adds he has baptized people with just a water bottle, even on a hand or forehead, and the greater immersion is the Spirit's life-changing transformation, not the water. Ben calls Acts 8's separation of water baptism and Spirit reception an aberration against the rest of Acts and warns against chapter-division theology, and the table puts a pin in the Holy Spirit discussion before it runs another hour.

Dear LFTP: the South Carolina babysitting letter

• Should I visit my friend in South Carolina if I'll be expected to babysit grandchildren I don't want to watch?

Mike reads the single Dear LFTP letter: a woman invited for a long weekend at her friend's new South Carolina home, with a still-unhealed sprained ankle, balks when the friend expects her to babysit grandchildren while the daughter and son-in-law go out, a pattern from before the move. Boova calls it ridiculous on both sides; Dan, speaking as a grandparent, wouldn't crash someone else's grandkid time and would just visit another week ("Disco Dan"). Secular's answer is to overdramatize the ankle and lie about the real reason. The table's verdict: be honest but not cruel, don't press on the callus, just ask for a different week; Dan jokes about a March hurricane-relief trip taking the kids to a work camp, which everyone agrees needs a better name.

Close: be faithful in the means

Ben wraps: thanks for hanging through a heavy Bible episode, plugs 1000balloons.com once more, thanks Gabe Clawson for sitting in and extends an open invitation (Gabe is staying the night and will be there till 7AM), notes holiday schedules are dicey, and signs off with "be faithful in the means. God will handle the ends."