Ask AI to HELP you do, but never WHAT to do. Here’s why.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and how fathomless his ways! (Romans 11:33)

Charles Spurgeon once said, “There is no fool so great as a knowing fool.” In this age of AI, we are seeing a boon of knowledge applied foolishly and a dearth of wisdom applied biblically.

What’s the difference? I love how Billy Graham put it: “Wisdom is applying knowledge with discernment and good judgment; knowledge is fact-finding.” And the ultimate source of wisdom is God (see Proverbs 2:6). Which means that wisdom isn’t a cognitive capacity you can “scale up” with more data and processing power. It flows downward from God to human beings.

Non-believers discern some wisdom through God’s common grace (see Isaiah 28:24-29). Christians discern it through the power of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:14). But technology can’t discern a thing. It is incapable of making judgment calls because there is no soul behind the machine. “There is nothing inside,” says the CEO of Microsoft AI. “No pain, no emotions, no will or desire. It’s an illusion, a trick.”

So, while AI can be terrifically useful for informing a wise decision, it can never make one. Because wisdom requires a soul.

In this five-week series, I’m laying down five biblical guardrails for working with AI. Here’s Guardrail #3: Don’t use AI to make judgment calls that require wisdom.

A few months ago, I shared the disastrous relational consequences when I ignored this advice. Let me share an example of when, by God’s grace, I actually heeded this guardrail.

Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring a few different concepts for books I might publish in 2028. Various AI tools have been incredibly helpful for gathering information to help me make that decision (EX: gathering data for market demand on certain topics, building competitive analyses, etc.).

As I write this, I’m still undecided on which book I will write next. Frankly, it’s very tempting to just ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude to decide for me. It would make my life a lot easier.

But I refuse. Because choosing which book I will spend 500+ hours writing is a judgment call that requires wisdom. So while I’m happy to lean on AI for data, I am leaning on the Lord and Spirit-filled humans to help make my decision.

Need help staying within this guardrail? Memorize this mantra that I’ve been using in my own work: Ask AI to help you do, but never what to do. Instead, “keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Ephesians 1:17).