Big Idea: As a co-leader of a Bible study on an Old Testament book, here are various ways I have recently used Artificial Intelligence.
My Bible Study has been going through Old Testament books for several years. We just finished 1 and 2 Kings and are preparing to study Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther in the fall.
Each year we have 12-13 weeks in the Fall, and 18 weeks in the Spring. Most Bible study guides do not have that many weeks written out. We craft our own PowerPoint lessons and homework weekly. We use a couple of websites, mostly The Bible Project, The Bible Recap and The Spoken Gospel.
At our large church about thirty women come in person, others join online or watch later via zoom recording. Called, Reading Through the Bible, we encourage the reading the Word, even multiple times in a week. Those who attend include women mature in the faith who have studied through Bible Study Fellowship, Precept and Beth Moore classes and also those brand new to opening the Bible.
Practical use
Here are three ways I have recently used AI as a Bible Study leader.
Create a syllabus
We could not find a 10-11 week class for Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. We try to include a week of welcome, connection and overview and end with a wrap up and party.
I went to an AI site, CHAT GPT. I wrote:
Create an 11 week Bible study on Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.
Labeled, “Books of Restoration,” it included an introduction/theme. It presented a chart of 3 columns using week, chapters, theme/focus. It listed 3 key historical concepts.
AI always offers more. It offered discussion questions, or an historic timeline. By the way you can always ask it for good discussion questions or application questions. If you don't like it or don't think it sounds quite right, don't use it. They usually pull the questions from existing Bible studies.
CHAT GPT also listed the books and YouTube videos it drew from. The books of choice and videos were ones we would approve of.
But in going over the plan, my co-leader noticed Nehemiah 7 was completely left out, which was a good reminder how important it is to verify that their information is correct. We adjusted the chapter groupings to our preference.
It inserted Esther between Ezra 6-7. We saw that was pretty accurate as to the timeline of the events.
While it was not a perfect program, we could adjust it the way we wanted to, it was a great starting point that was easier than starting from scratch to make a plan.
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| The first section of the AI generated template for an 11 week study of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther |
Create a timeline
I had a hefty amount of material to cover for a class (2 Kings 8-12) which was overwhelming with a lot of moving parts. For the teacher and the students!
My query:
Make a timeline of 2 Kings 8:7-12:21 including 2 Chronicles 22-24 showing both the Northern and Southern Kingdom of Israel and their kings.
Since this was an experiment in my early AI days, I asked this same question of the following: ChatGPT, Claude, GROK, GEMINI, Deep Seek, and Perplexity. They all covered the same type of information, but Perplexity seemed to have it organized the best.
It then asked me:
If you’d like this turned into a printable chart with columns for scriptural references and approximate dates, tell me the Bible translation you primarily use and I’ll structure it to match your study style.
I asked it to make references using the ESV. It made such a great chart I made it into a PDF and emailed it before class, and printed it out for everyone.
Our class said that chart made all the difference for them to keep everything straight.
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| First part of the AI generated timeline |
Research the background
This summer I have been researching the life of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther in AI.
Here is an example of a query I started on Ezra in Gemini (Google). You will note that I am very specific.
Tell me about the life of Ezra in the Biblical book of Ezra: who he was, what he did, his family background, and other Biblical references to him outside of the book of Ezra.
AI asked me if I’d like a comparison of Ezra and Nehemiah the individuals. Since we are studying both historical figures in our class. It included a chart.
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| AI generated chart comparing Ezra and Nehemiah |
Finally, I asked Gemini for more information.
Tell me about Scribes in the Old Testament. What they did, how and when the position began, did they all need to be priests, and how they compare to the NT scribes in Jesus’ day?
I could look a lot of this information up in our Bible Encyclopedia or Bible Dictionaries (I’m a pastor’s wife with a large theological library at home). AI has been a real time saver on this background information.
I also asked more about the non-Jewish world powers dealing with the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther in terms of timeline, nations, and world leaders.
AI included a map, and a photo of what is called the Cyrus Cylinder, an archeological find.
Keep searching the Scriptures!
AI is a tool that can help our study of the Scriptures. AI is not the Word of God, but it can stimulate us to seek and study more. Let’s be like the Bereans in the book of Acts! Keep searching the Scriptures!
And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures, day after day, to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. Acts 17:11 NLT
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Reflect:
If you had a time saver for Bible study preparation, how might you use some of that time you saved? More prayer for class? Read the passage another time? Other ideas?
