"Is AI good or bad?"
might be the wrong question.

The better question:

How does Jesus help us think about a powerful, paradigm-shifting technology produced by some of the most powerful entities in modern society?

How have Christians dialogued and decided on approaches and ethics to technology throughout history?

Printing presses. Railroads. Automobiles. Television. The internet.

Each one reshaped daily life. Each one provoked the church to ask: what now?

Jesus didn't see the printing press, electricity, or the internet.

But he did live inside an imperial economy whose technologies reshaped daily life — often violently.

• Roads
• Coinage
• Census
• Taxation
• Military supply chains

The trap

Pharisees + Herodians.

Two ends of the spectrum. They don't get along. Whatever he answers, one of them gets him.

The denarius is not just money.

It bears the image of Tiberius Caesar with the inscription:

"Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus"
and on the reverse: "Pontifex Maximus" — high priest.

To a Jew, this coin is a portable idol.

A violation of the first and second commandments every time it changes hands.

Either answer kills him.

1. Pay the tax. Affirm Roman occupation. Endorse imperial cult. Lose moral authority with the people.
2. Don't pay the tax. Tax revolt. Sedition. Hand him to Rome.

There is no good answer.

• They have one. He doesn't.
• They've already accommodated themselves to the imperial economy in a way he hasn't.
• They are exposed before he answers.

"Whose image is this?"
"Caesar's."
"Then give it back to him."

Pay the tax. Caesar's coin can go back to Caesar. Done.

But this is a setup.

The Greek word for "image" is εἰκών (eikōn).

Anyone listening hears the echo.

"…and give back to God what bears God's image."

What belongs to Caesar is small.

A coin. Fine. Let him have it.

What belongs to God is everything else.

Caesar gets a coin. God gets the world and everyone in it.

This is why they walked away amazed.

He didn't escape the trap.

He dissolved it.

Jesus diminishes the tax question and elevates the human one.

The denarius traveled into every Galilean home, carrying with it a religious claim.

"Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, high priest."

You couldn't buy bread without participating in that claim.

The smartphone, the chatbot, the AI assistant carry a related but sharper claim.

What is being asked of us:

• Ownership — give us your data, your work, your attention
• Subservience — accept the terms; there is no negotiation
• Access — let us mediate what you read, who you talk to, what you know
• Dependency — let us become the thing you can't think without

Language that used to belong to God: salvation, intelligence, transcendence, abundance, the future of the species.

The test:
Whose image are you carrying back at the end?

Tool vs. dependency.

Tool vs. exploitation.

Which dream is being prioritized?

The line is the moment a tool stops being a tool.

Something elevated to the place that belongs to God.

Caesar reaching past the coin to claim the image.

The question on the way in.

Before you pick up a new tool — before you let one into your house, your work, your kid's life — ask:

Whose image is on this?
Whose benefit?
Whose cost?

Not paranoia. Discernment.

The audit on the way through.

Tools made by humans, used by humans, can extend the work of image-bearers.

The trouble starts when the tool starts producing what only image-bearers were made to produce — judgment, witness, presence, love.

Extension: the human stays the source. The tool amplifies.

Replacement: the human is bypassed. Something not made in God's image takes the human's place.

Tool stays a tool when human stays human.

The line you don't cross.

The line is directional, not a checklist.

Two kingdoms are being served:

• God's kingdom — extension toward neighbor, dignity, image, presence
• Caesar's kingdom — extraction, replacement, dependency, the diminishment of the human

The line is anything that crosses from the first into the second.

Yes — often. With these specific habits.

• Use what extends.
• Refuse what replaces.
• Push for what serves.

The question to take with you:

What world is being created
by the things I carry?

How do the tools I use participate
in the world —
and whose world is it claiming?

For us, then:

• Whose image is on you?
• Who do you serve?
• What kingdom are you participating in — and how do you know?

• What do you hold that cannot be rendered unto Caesar?
• What can be a tool that genuinely enhances God's dream for the world?

AI, Rockets, & Bicycles

Sunday, May 24 · 11:00 AM

Today we examined the coin in our hand.

Next: the empire that minted it.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Render unto God what is God's.

Caesar gets the coin.

God gets the world.

Whose image is on you?