More than half of American Christians now say they trust AI with their spiritual life. That is a problem worth taking seriously, and it is also the reason Logos built its AI the way it did.

Dr. James Spencer talks with Scott Lindsey, an executive director at Logos, about what happens when a Bible study tool is cut off from the open internet on purpose. Scott walks through the three design commitments behind Logos AI: no connection to the open web, so answers come from commentaries and scholarship rather than blogs and forums; cited sources down to the page number, as a check against hallucinated books and hallucinated authors; and no attempt to model the user and tell him what he wants to hear. He also explains the one thing Logos coders have hard-coded the tool to refuse, which is writing your sermon, your paper, or your Bible study for you.

The back half of the conversation is a live walkthrough of Study Assistant and Factbook, including a look at Genesis 6, 1 through 8 and the questions most of us do not know to ask a text. Video listeners will get more out of that stretch, so if you are on audio, the version on YouTube or GodTube is worth your time.

This episode includes a special offer for Thinking Christian listeners. Logos is providing a free 60-day trial at logos.com/thinkingchristian. The offer closes September 8, 2026, and the link is in the show notes.

logos.com/thinkingchristian (expires Wed, September 8th, 2026)

Follow and subscribe

Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org 

Website: www.thinkingchristian.org 

More than half of American Christians now say they trust AI with their spiritual life. That is a problem worth taking seriously, and it is also the reason Logos built its AI the way it did.
Dr. James Spencer talks with Scott Lindsey, an executive director at Logos, about what happens when a Bible study tool is cut off from the open internet on purpose. Scott walks through the three design commitments behind Logos AI: no connection to the open web, so answers come from commentaries and scholarship rather than blogs and forums; cited sources down to the page number, as a check against hallucinated books and hallucinated authors; and no attempt to model the user and tell him what he wants to hear. He also explains the one thing Logos coders have hard-coded the tool to refuse, which is writing your sermon, your paper, or your Bible study for you.
The back half of the conversation is a live walkthrough of Study Assistant and Factbook, including a look at Genesis 6, 1 through 8 and the questions most of us do not know to ask a text. Video listeners will get more out of that stretch, so if you are on audio, the version on YouTube or GodTube is worth your time.
This episode includes a special offer for Thinking Christian listeners. Logos is providing a free 60-day trial at logos.com/thinkingchristian. The offer closes September 8, 2026, and the link is in the show notes.
<a href="http://logos.com/thinkingchristian">logos.com/thinkingchristian</a> (expires Wed, September 8th, 2026)
Follow and subscribe
Subscribe to Thinking Christian: <a href="https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org">https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;
Website: <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org">www.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;

Christians shouldn’t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.

Find more from James at https://www.thinkingchristian.org/.

Christians shouldn&rsquo;t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.
Find more from James at <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org/">https://www.thinkingchristian.org/</a>.

Christians shouldn’t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.

Thinking Christian: Clear Theology for a Confusing World

Christians shouldn&rsquo;t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.
Find more from James at <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org/">https://www.thinkingchristian.org/</a>.

AI With Guardrails: Scott Lindsey on Logos and the Future of Bible Study

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/5e27a451-e6e6-4c51-aa03-a7370003783c/clips/96cb0b07-2100-427e-9e7f-b4b001160609/transcript

James Spencer and Ashish Varma continue the series on what narrows the church's vision with a look at inversion — what happens when an interpretive grid quietly takes over the authority that belongs to Scripture itself.

The conversation moves from the hermeneutical spiral (nobody comes to the text from nowhere) to the passages most of us never work: the command not to destroy fruit trees in Deuteronomy 20, God giving the land little by little in Deuteronomy 7, the instruction not to dispossess Moab in Deuteronomy 2, and the "remember the poor" tagline at the end of Paul's account of the Jerusalem council. James and Ashish ask what those texts do to confident readings of conquest, Christian nationalism and dominionism.

They also walk through how heresy was actually decided — Augustine and Pelagius, Nicaea in 325 and the deliberate loosening of that language in 381 — and why the young-earth reading of Genesis 1 owes more to a social moment than to the text. Plus: Acts 7, Aquinas, and why interpretations should be written in pencil.

Chapters (approximate, from speaker turns — verify against the final cut):

00:00 What inversion is: when the grid outranks the text

03:22 The hermeneutical spiral — no one reads from nowhere

09:30 Beach muscles: the books we never work

12:11 Deuteronomy 20 and the fruit trees

16:03 Galatians and "remember the poor"

20:11 Deuteronomy 2, dominionism, and the limits question

29:06 Acts 7: Stephen and the opposite error

33:18 How heresy was actually decided 

42:23 Nicaea 325 → 381 and loosening the language

47:15 Genesis 1, young earth, and the social moment

59:40 Brokering gaps, creativity, and writing in pencil

Follow and subscribe

Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org 

Website: www.thinkingchristian.org 

James Spencer and Ashish Varma continue the series on what narrows the church's vision with a look at inversion &mdash; what happens when an interpretive grid quietly takes over the authority that belongs to Scripture itself.
The conversation moves from the hermeneutical spiral (nobody comes to the text from nowhere) to the passages most of us never work: the command not to destroy fruit trees in Deuteronomy 20, God giving the land little by little in Deuteronomy 7, the instruction not to dispossess Moab in Deuteronomy 2, and the "remember the poor" tagline at the end of Paul's account of the Jerusalem council. James and Ashish ask what those texts do to confident readings of conquest, Christian nationalism and dominionism.
They also walk through how heresy was actually decided &mdash; Augustine and Pelagius, Nicaea in 325 and the deliberate loosening of that language in 381 &mdash; and why the young-earth reading of Genesis 1 owes more to a social moment than to the text. Plus: Acts 7, Aquinas, and why interpretations should be written in pencil.
Chapters (approximate, from speaker turns &mdash; verify against the final cut):
00:00 What inversion is: when the grid outranks the text
03:22 The hermeneutical spiral &mdash; no one reads from nowhere
09:30 Beach muscles: the books we never work
12:11 Deuteronomy 20 and the fruit trees
16:03 Galatians and "remember the poor"
20:11 Deuteronomy 2, dominionism, and the limits question
29:06 Acts 7: Stephen and the opposite error
33:18 How heresy was actually decided&nbsp;
42:23 Nicaea 325 &rarr; 381 and loosening the language
47:15 Genesis 1, young earth, and the social moment
59:40 Brokering gaps, creativity, and writing in pencil
Follow and subscribe
Subscribe to Thinking Christian: <a href="https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org">https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;
Website: <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org">www.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;

When Your Interpretation Becomes the Authority | Inversion

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/5e27a451-e6e6-4c51-aa03-a7370003783c/clips/1c02c021-428d-4577-8689-b49e01602c7e/transcript

Institutions confuse their own survival with the work of God. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma close the diagnostic arc of this series with transaction, meaning the trade a person or an organization makes when preserving the platform becomes more important than the faithfulness the platform was built for. The anchor text is Jeroboam, who sets up worship at Dan and Bethel not to introduce a different god but to keep his people from traveling south. Varma's reading sharpens it: the question is whether Israel gathers around the presence of God or whether God is expected to gather around Israel.

The conversation turns on how easily success gets read as approval. Spencer flags the language of institutions insisting that God needs them to be what they are now more than ever. Varma answers with Habakkuk, where God raises up Babylon in response to injustice and Babylon is still judged for how it behaves, and extends the point to a mission history in which the gospel genuinely spread through colonial expansion that was itself blessed by churches and was still indefensible. Being used is not the same as being approved. Spencer adds Nebuchadnezzar, named as God's servant and punished seventy years later, and the distinction holds: the exile was deserved, the brutality was not.

What follows is uncomfortable for anyone who works in one of these places. Institutions may end because their course is run, or because they failed, or in spite of their faithfulness, and outcomes do not tell you which. Spencer, who consults with seminaries and Christian colleges, describes leaders trapped by buildings, accreditation, and systems, protecting a vehicle rather than the thing the vehicle was for. Nobody pursues a doctorate in order to preserve an institution. The question both men land on is whether the model has quietly been substituted for the mission. 

Resources

The diagnosis guide: https://www.thinkingchristian.org/about/framework  

Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman- amazon.com 

Norman Wirzba on creation and nature- amazon.com

Passages referenced: Genesis 6 and 11 and 15, Deuteronomy 8, 1 Kings 12 and 17, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, John 12

Follow and subscribe

Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org

Website: https://www.thinkingchristian.org 

Chapters

0:00 What transaction means

2:24 Jeroboam and the shortcut

3:10 Not a different god

7:18 Why it looked legitimate

10:42 Institutional inertia

13:44 In defense of the word lucky

15:36 Habakkuk and Babylon

19:52 Spread and consequence

20:19 Kahneman on luck

22:43 Nebuchadnezzar as servant

26:50 Two theological problems

31:34 Babel and human capability

33:50 The patience of God

35:51 Institutions that simply end

39:35 Ideology defines the questions

41:34 What higher ed is protecting

43:16 Substituting the vehicle

45:38 Faithful in the moment

47:56 Repentance and repudiation

50:15 Walking beside someone bigger

53:19 What comes next in the series

Institutions confuse their own survival with the work of God. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma close the diagnostic arc of this series with transaction, meaning the trade a person or an organization makes when preserving the platform becomes more important than the faithfulness the platform was built for. The anchor text is Jeroboam, who sets up worship at Dan and Bethel not to introduce a different god but to keep his people from traveling south. Varma's reading sharpens it: the question is whether Israel gathers around the presence of God or whether God is expected to gather around Israel.
The conversation turns on how easily success gets read as approval. Spencer flags the language of institutions insisting that God needs them to be what they are now more than ever. Varma answers with Habakkuk, where God raises up Babylon in response to injustice and Babylon is still judged for how it behaves, and extends the point to a mission history in which the gospel genuinely spread through colonial expansion that was itself blessed by churches and was still indefensible. Being used is not the same as being approved. Spencer adds Nebuchadnezzar, named as God's servant and punished seventy years later, and the distinction holds: the exile was deserved, the brutality was not.
What follows is uncomfortable for anyone who works in one of these places. Institutions may end because their course is run, or because they failed, or in spite of their faithfulness, and outcomes do not tell you which. Spencer, who consults with seminaries and Christian colleges, describes leaders trapped by buildings, accreditation, and systems, protecting a vehicle rather than the thing the vehicle was for. Nobody pursues a doctorate in order to preserve an institution. The question both men land on is whether the model has quietly been substituted for the mission.&nbsp;
Resources
The diagnosis guide: <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org/about/framework">https://www.thinkingchristian.org/about/framework</a> &nbsp;
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman- <a href="https://amzn.to/3SivBRF">amazon.com</a>&nbsp;
Norman Wirzba on creation and nature- <a href="https://amzn.to/4wJNgk7">amazon.com</a>
Passages referenced: Genesis 6 and 11 and 15, Deuteronomy 8, 1 Kings 12 and 17, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, John 12
Follow and subscribe
Subscribe to Thinking Christian: <a href="https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org">https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org</a>
Website:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org">https://www.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;
Chapters
0:00 What transaction means
2:24 Jeroboam and the shortcut
3:10 Not a different god
7:18 Why it looked legitimate
10:42 Institutional inertia
13:44 In defense of the word lucky
15:36 Habakkuk and Babylon
19:52 Spread and consequence
20:19 Kahneman on luck
22:43 Nebuchadnezzar as servant
26:50 Two theological problems
31:34 Babel and human capability
33:50 The patience of God
35:51 Institutions that simply end
39:35 Ideology defines the questions
41:34 What higher ed is protecting
43:16 Substituting the vehicle
45:38 Faithful in the moment
47:56 Repentance and repudiation
50:15 Walking beside someone bigger
53:19 What comes next in the series

Why Do Christian Institutions Compromise To Stay Alive?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/5e27a451-e6e6-4c51-aa03-a7370003783c/clips/86828bfc-4c73-41de-9cf5-b49e01544b9c/transcript

The fear of losing the faith to another culture is producing the very thing it fears. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma open a series on three forces pressing on the church, beginning with assimilation, and Varma's argument is that syncretism functions mostly as a fear discourse. The word gets aimed outward, at newer expressions of Christian faith in other places, by people whose own expression is so culturally saturated that they have stopped noticing it. He points out that "essence," the thing we say we are protecting, is a Greek philosophical category rather than a biblical one.

His illustration is an apple. American students arriving in Germany recognize the fruit and still find it strange, because the apple in their heads is large, waxed, and unblemished, and a German student had the same reaction in reverse. The dandelion has a flower and we call it a weed. Every category came from somewhere. Spencer supplies the Old Testament counterweight: what scholars call syncretism there is specific and it is always about Yahweh. Israel does not swap gods so much as limit the one they have, keeping him for agriculture and hiring another for war, and the distortion becomes a denial.

That distinction lets the conversation move without collapsing. Acts 2 puts the gospel into every dialect at once, and Acts 15 declines to make Gentiles into Jews. Varma, whose family is Indian, describes a mission history in which merchant, soldier, and missionary arrived together and in which becoming Christian meant becoming less Indian. He asks what an Indian Christian should do with Diwali, a festival about light overcoming darkness in which a god enters a demon's kingdom to rescue his bride, and offers the reception of Christmas in the Roman world as his analogy. His word for the move is not conform but transfigure. Spencer's is relocation under a different authority. Both insist on a constraint: Jesus the Jewish Messiah, which they argue is what makes the openness possible rather than what limits it.

Chapters

0:00 Three forces on the church

1:33 Syncretism as a fear discourse

4:26 A German breakfast

6:09 What an apple looks like

7:51 Where the image came from

8:48 Why is that a weed?

9:43 Essence is not a biblical word

10:40 Syncretism in the Old Testament

13:04 Naming it in someone else

16:10 Acts 2 and every dialect

18:11 What was actually at stake

20:00 Mission history in India

21:42 Diwali and light over darkness

22:41 How Christmas landed on the 25th

24:14 Distortion becomes denial

26:11 Relocated under Christ

29:58 Transfigured, not conformed

30:12 Distinction through proximity

34:28 Were Israel's laws more just?

38:13 What actually made Israel different

42:18 Assimilation as the result of fear

45:03 The Jerusalem council

46:31 Glitter and what we miss

51:04 The litmus test

55:22 Constraints that enable

Resources

Download the Study Guide at https://www.thinkingchristian.org/about/framework 

Varma's essays on Diwali and Indian Christian identity: Substack 

The Society for Post-Supersessionist Theology

Passages referenced: Deuteronomy 4 and 6, Daniel 1, Acts 2 and 7 and 15, Philippians 1

Follow and subscribe

Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org 

Website: www.thinkingchristian.org 

 

The fear of losing the faith to another culture is producing the very thing it fears. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma open a series on three forces pressing on the church, beginning with assimilation, and Varma's argument is that syncretism functions mostly as a fear discourse. The word gets aimed outward, at newer expressions of Christian faith in other places, by people whose own expression is so culturally saturated that they have stopped noticing it. He points out that "essence," the thing we say we are protecting, is a Greek philosophical category rather than a biblical one.
His illustration is an apple. American students arriving in Germany recognize the fruit and still find it strange, because the apple in their heads is large, waxed, and unblemished, and a German student had the same reaction in reverse. The dandelion has a flower and we call it a weed. Every category came from somewhere. Spencer supplies the Old Testament counterweight: what scholars call syncretism there is specific and it is always about Yahweh. Israel does not swap gods so much as limit the one they have, keeping him for agriculture and hiring another for war, and the distortion becomes a denial.
That distinction lets the conversation move without collapsing. Acts 2 puts the gospel into every dialect at once, and Acts 15 declines to make Gentiles into Jews. Varma, whose family is Indian, describes a mission history in which merchant, soldier, and missionary arrived together and in which becoming Christian meant becoming less Indian. He asks what an Indian Christian should do with Diwali, a festival about light overcoming darkness in which a god enters a demon's kingdom to rescue his bride, and offers the reception of Christmas in the Roman world as his analogy. His word for the move is not conform but transfigure. Spencer's is relocation under a different authority. Both insist on a constraint: Jesus the Jewish Messiah, which they argue is what makes the openness possible rather than what limits it.
Chapters
0:00 Three forces on the church
1:33 Syncretism as a fear discourse
4:26 A German breakfast
6:09 What an apple looks like
7:51 Where the image came from
8:48 Why is that a weed?
9:43 Essence is not a biblical word
10:40 Syncretism in the Old Testament
13:04 Naming it in someone else
16:10 Acts 2 and every dialect
18:11 What was actually at stake
20:00 Mission history in India
21:42 Diwali and light over darkness
22:41 How Christmas landed on the 25th
24:14 Distortion becomes denial
26:11 Relocated under Christ
29:58 Transfigured, not conformed
30:12 Distinction through proximity
34:28 Were Israel's laws more just?
38:13 What actually made Israel different
42:18 Assimilation as the result of fear
45:03 The Jerusalem council
46:31 Glitter and what we miss
51:04 The litmus test
55:22 Constraints that enable
Resources
Download the Study Guide at <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org/about/framework">https://www.thinkingchristian.org/about/framework</a>&nbsp;
Varma's essays on Diwali and Indian Christian identity: <a href="https://caacptsem.substack.com/p/festival-of-lights">Substack</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.spostst.org">The Society for Post-Supersessionist Theology</a>
Passages referenced: Deuteronomy 4 and 6, Daniel 1, Acts 2 and 7 and 15, Philippians 1
Follow and subscribe
Subscribe to Thinking Christian: <a href="https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org">https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;
Website: <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org">www.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;
&nbsp;

The Fear Of Syncretism Is Making The Church Assimilate

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/5e27a451-e6e6-4c51-aa03-a7370003783c/clips/20b7bc1e-af73-4751-94a5-b49e014602bd/transcript

AI With Guardrails: Scott Lindsey on Logos and the Future of Bible Study

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