← WHOA That's Good Podcast
WHOA That's Good Podcast
Prayer > ChatGPT: Choosing What Shapes Your Life | Sadie Robertson Huff | Bobby Gruenewald
00:59:33
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Transcript43 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. What is up, everybody? Happy Wednesday. I hope you're having a great week, but per usual, it is about to get so much better. We are going to have such an incredible episode today, and we're actually celebrating something huge. If you have the YouVersion Bible app on your phone, which I hope you do. If you don't, you're about to feel really left out when I tell you that 1 billion people just about had the youversion by a lot on their phone. And if you're not One of those 1 billion, now is the time to do it. We're celebrating that today with the founder of the YouVersion by. Wow. We have Bobby Gruenwald on the podcast, and I am so excited to get to chat with you about the whole story and just celebrating this awesome moment. So, Bobby, welcome to the well, that's Good podcast.
- [00:50]
B
Thank you. Thank you, Sadie, for having me. So, so glad to be here. And congratulations also, on your new addition.
- [00:57]
A
Thank you. Yes. I. We got to see you back in April, and it was super cool. You were sharing the whole story of, like, how the Bible app started and what y' all are celebrating. And I was like, I've gotta get him on the podcast. And I was like, I want you to come on the podcast, but I'm about to have a baby. So I'm super grateful this worked out. Bobby, you might not be prepared for this question, and if you're not, I'm so sorry this is going to come out of left field. But one question that on the way, it's good podcast. I ask every one of our guests to get started is, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Now, I know that's loaded, but if you can think of some good advice someone gave you, give it back to us.
- [01:37]
B
I don't know if it's the best advice I've been given, but it's the first advice that came to mind when you asked that question, Pastor Craig. It's actually the advice I got from Pastor Craig that he got from somebody else. And the advice was that we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term, but we grossly underestimate what God can do with a lifetime of faithfulness. And I think in a lot of times, like, I need to hear that sometimes because I'm just striving to, like, achieve something and focused on it, and I just need to. I need to win the long game, basically, and be consistent and faithful over time. The other thing that came to mind when you asked that question Is most of the advice I feel like I've gotten. I've seen it lived and not spoken. It's like it's come through examples like people in my life and the way that even I just mentioned Pastor Craig, but the way he is a husband and the way I get to watch him be a husband to Amy is like an awesome example. And I feel like it's like living advice. Like, I get to kind of just watch it happen. There's business. There's a guy named Steve Bailey that was a guy that saw me as an entrepreneur before I saw myself as an entrepreneur. And I watched him lead his business with like Christian values. He was a car dealer, but he was so good at what he did and such an incredible example. So it was not the words he said. It was literally just like how he did it that became kind of like advice I live by. So anyway, that's my quick, quick answer. I gave you more than one.
- [03:13]
A
No, I love that so much, and that is so real. One time my mom was offended because someone asked, like, what's some of the best piece of advice your mom has given you? And I don't know why. It was like we went blank. All the kids were like, trying to think and she's like, what, y' all don't remember? Like, I used to say this and I always say this. And it's funny that we couldn't remember that because if I think about the most influential person in my life for good, it is my mom. I mean, she is just a rock star. I respect her so much. I learned from her so much. I've definitely learned the most from her in life. Not just because she's my mom, but because of how she has been my mom, because of how I've seen her, you know, as a wife, as a mom, as someone who works and runs a business and started something new. Like, I've learned so much from her, but it's hard to kind of think about the specific things, you know, that maybe she said here and there. But yeah, just her life is. Is something that I want to model. And I love that you said the long term because I think a of times young people, which our podcast primarily like 20 year olds to 30 year olds, we don't always think about that. We recently had my great grandma on the podcast and her friends and they're all in their 80s and 90s and I was laughing, thinking, this is such a different podcast than like what most young people's podcasts sound like. It's not clickbaity it's not, you know, those little pockets that sound good or jump at you. It was actually like the most relaxed and peace. Peaceful and. But I was like, but I want to give people a vision of the long run. You know, like, what do you. What is success in the long run? What does it look like when you're 94 and you say, this is what I would say to live a good life. And so I love that you said that and get people thinking about that. That's a beautiful piece of advice. Like I said with. With you starting the. The Bible app. You know, people are probably so curious about that because so many people have this, but they don't know how it got started. And it's such a cool story. I would love for you to just take us back to the beginning of how this idea became what it is today with almost. Or maybe you already have hit a billion downloads at this point.
- [05:25]
B
Yeah, no, we. I. I am, I'm happy to share. It's. It's a total God story. It's not. Not something any of us can take credit for. My. My background really quick was in tech. I mean I was actually degrees. My degree's in finance. But I became an entrepreneur when I was in college and the tech space. And I thought this is what God designed me to do. I was like 23 years old, had started and sold a couple of companies and instead God led me onto staff at our church. It was our local church and we loved it and Pastor Craig Groeschel started it and we were. It's called Life Church here in Oklahoma City. And so I fell in love with the church. I had an opportunity to come on the team, felt like it was God's direction, but I didn't really know why. And, and looking back on it, he'd kind of given me all these unique experiences that let me do today what he created me to do every day. But the youversion story started back in 2006. It was in the O' Hare Airport in Chicago. I was in one of those long TSA lines where like wraps around the corner and it was before they had pre check and things that like let you go through faster. And for whatever reason that day in this really long line, I would normally be crazy frustrated, but for that particular day, I was just asking myself this question. It's like, I wonder if there's a way to use technology to help me read the Bible more consistently. I was on staff of the church. I felt like I was not consistently in the word, like the way that I thought I should be and wanted to be. You can make a lot of excuses as to why. And I know some people that are watching or listening might be like, oh, that's, you know, just got to have discipline to do it. And you got to, you know, make sure you have a rhythm to it. And I knew all that. But for whatever reason, it wasn't something that was connected to my everyday life. I want it to be so there in the line. I had this idea for a website. This predated apps and the app Store and all that. This is before all that. And the idea for the website was it had kind of this way for you to take any type of media, any YouTube video, any Flickr, photo Flickrs and used to be a photo site, and attach it to any part of scripture. So you could say, this is how this scripture relates to my life, or I want to. I want to show what it looks like. And that was kind of the original idea. I came up with a name at the airport. Some people say, where'd the name come from? It was like just the best name that I came up with. Like the 800ft between the security line and the gate. And I registered the domain name youversion.com and got on the airplane that day and then started to talk to people about it and just said, here's the idea. Here's what I'm thinking. Now, I have lots of ideas, but that doesn't mean they're all ones that we're going to do and are going to try. I talked to Pastor Craig, talked to the other leaders at the church and just said, here's kind of what I'm thinking. They liked it and thought we should try it. But then we had all kinds of obstacles that we kind of ran into immediately. The first obstacle is one that I just did not understand or see coming, which was that people actually own the Bible text. Like, I kind of thought the Bible is free like it's been for thousands of years. Yeah, obviously people put care into translating the Bible. And some of these, some companies, and even not for profits, you know, spend millions of dollars carefully getting all the right scholars and all the right people involved. And so it makes total sense that they would use. Get royalties at that time from selling the Bible and putting it print Bibles and all that. They'd get royalties that would help them pay for the translation work that they did. And so I just didn't know that. So the first thing I needed to do is actually get permission from these publishers. And in a way that Only God could kind of do it. We had no relationships with any publishers. We had no connections. I literally knew no one. And if you try calling the front desk of like HarperCollins or somebody, one of these big companies and tell them that you want a free license to their Bible, that doesn't. They don't, like, have a place they like to send you. They. No, no one answers and no one wants to talk to you. So anyway, what I did though is I decided I was going to just announce this website on a blog that Pastor Craig and I had. And it was a lot of pastors and church leaders that would follow this blog. And so I put together a blog post and it had a picture like, so we had a designer that just kind of mocked up what the website was going to look like and we put the picture on the blog post. The team was like, what are you doing writing this blog post? It's like, yeah, we're going to just tell people we're launching the website. And they're like, well, but we don't have anybody to work on it. We don't have a permission. We don't have. We really don't have anything that you would need to build this website. And I'm telling the team we're going to launch it in September of 2007. It was like three months away from the. When I put the blog post out, I said, well, this is how you do it. You just like, tell people it's coming and then you go do it.
- [10:33]
C
Hey guys, it's Christian here back for Sadie. And I just want to tell you guys that, you know, I get it. Some mornings don't work out the way that you think it's going to. And some nights you just want to stay up late and watch movies, which is where I'm at right now. But one thing that I've learned is that the way you sleep sets the tone for everything else. And that is why I've been drinking Agz. Agz is Ag1's new nighttime drink. And it has become such a part of my nighttime routine just as much as AG1 is my morning routine. AGZ is made with calming herbs and minerals and adaptogens to help support restful sleep and. And help you wake up feeling refreshed. It is a melatonin free formula that supports your body's natural sleep cycle. And the best part is that its ingredients are clinically studied. It really helps you relax and de stress to prepare you for restful sleep that actually makes you feel restored in the morning. Time. So whether I choose to drink it warm like hot cocoa, or chilled like chocolate milk before bed, AGZ helps me fall asleep and sleep better. With flavors like chocolate and chocolate mint and mixed berry, there is something for everyone. And agc, the chocolate flavor has been a game changer for me. I recommend it to anyone that yeah, maybe you have a hard time falling asleep, or maybe you just want to wake up feeling more restored in the morning. HZ does both. And that's what it's been doing for me. If you know me, I've been drinking AG1 now for years, even before they were a sponsor. So I knew AGZ would be great too. But I honestly did not know or expected to become such a part of my nighttime routine so quickly. Adding in a newborn might add to that equation a little bit. But if you're like me and you're ready to turn down the stress and if you want to focus on the rest, head to drink ag1.com whoa. To get a free frother with your first purchase of AGZ, that is drink ag1.com whoa.
- [12:17]
B
We posted the blog post and little did I know God used that blog post. He He There's a guy in Florida that saw it this I'd never met this guy before, but he wanted to talk to me about it. So I told him about the idea. He then called a friend of his in Oklahoma City, a guy named Mark Green, and told Mart about this idea. Mark Green is one of the family members of Hobby Lobby, and he also owned a chain of Christian bookstores called Mardell. And so Mart reached out to me. I knew of Mark Green, but I'd never met Mark Green before. And he wanted to hear about this idea. And he said, how can I help? And I said, well, I mean, the first problem is we don't have permission from anyone to use a Bible text. And he's like, I actually buy a lot of Bibles from all these publishers and so I can make an introduction. I can't promise you anything, but I'll introduce you. And he sat and wrote emails and introduced me to the CEOs of every one of these companies that all the major Bible translations. And of course that ultimately led to us having permission from one or two of them to be able to get started. Started. But if you think about it like the perfect person in the entire world to introduce me to all the right people lived in my town. I didn't know him, but God obviously knew, you know, that he was there. And that blog post was like a step of Faith that God kind of met with his faithfulness. You know, like, we just sort of stepped out and said, we're going to do it. We're committed to do it. And with, like, almost instantly, God provided the very first thing we needed to be able to make it happen. So, fast forward, we launched the website 2007. Unfortunately, or maybe actually fortunately, the website failed. Like, it actually didn't work. We worked really hard to build it. We obviously overcame all these obstacles and begin to realize that it didn't change how I read the Bible. I mean, I was forcing myself to use the website. It wasn't kind of a natural thing. Other people would come to it, but they weren't coming back. And so in December of that year, I was like, look, we need to shut it down like this. You know, we're going to learn from failure, but we can't just spend energy on something that's not working. We need to put our energy behind something that. That can work. But in the process of talking about why it failed, we thought, you know, we really should try putting on a mobile device. At that time, it predated iPhones. And so the. The popular smartphone is called a BlackBerry. And again, probably a lot of people that are listening to this have no idea what a BlackBerry was, but it was a little smartphone, probably.
- [14:54]
A
Remember your parents? Yeah, I remember my dad might have had a BlackBerry.
- [14:57]
B
Yeah.
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A
Brick breaker. Was that what it was called? Like the game?
- [15:01]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, they had the brick. Yeah. What was it called? Yeah, you're right.
- [15:04]
A
On the BlackBerry.
- [15:05]
B
Yep.
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A
I remember my dad, like, did not want to get an iPhone because he had such a high score on Brick Breaker. That was pretty funny. That's funny, though.
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B
It had a physical keyboard on it, and so it was very popular. And they called them crackberries because they were, like, really addictive. You know, like, it was the first time you could answer your email on your phone and messaging and all that. So anyway, we designed it for a BlackBerry and we were really surprised, but it really worked. It was natural how you would engage with scripture places you hadn't before. It was so simple that you would think it would not work, but it worked. And that was early 2008. And then Steve Jobs announced that he was creating something called an app store. And you're gonna be able to build apps for the iPhone. And so we thought, you know, we should try to build an app for the iPhone. I mean, like, based on what we see happening on BlackBerry. Well, none of us knew how to build an app. I mean, I'm not an engineer. I don't write code. Most people presume that I'm like the person that wrote the Bible app or wrote the code. I'm not that at all. I just have ideas. But we found a 19 year old on our team who loved Apple and those are like the only two things you had to have back then to build an app because no one knew how to build apps. And so this, this kid who is awesome, we worked part time, kind of nights and weekends working to build this app and submitted it to Apple in. I think we submitted to him in June of 2008 and then the App Store launched in July of 2008. And we were blown away because the very first day the App Store launched, the Bible app was there the very first day. And there's only 200 free apps that were available. So today you go to the App Store, there's like millions of apps. But that day we had the attention of everybody that had an iPhone because they were looking through the App Store and there was a Bible and there weren't that many apps to even look at. And so we saw 83,000 people install it on the first weekend and just blew our minds. Yeah, we were like couldn't believe that God did that. And we knew it's a God thing because it didn't make any sense otherwise. I mean, this is just kind of like this side project kind of thing. So.
- [17:19]
A
Wow.
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B
So that's how it started.
- [17:21]
A
It's so cool. It reminds me of in some sense like Noah when he starts building the ark before it ever rained and just how crazy that must have felt. And look for him to be building a boat, there's no rain coming. And yet then obviously when it did rain, so thankful you built the boat. Whenever God said build the boat and it's like you building that website, it didn't seem to make sense at first because it's like, okay, well that didn't really work and what was this really for? But then like to keep going and you didn't know that there was even going to be an option for it to be on a mobile app the way it was. Because I wasn't even there yet. Apps weren't even there yet. And then all of a sudden here there's an iPhone and an app store and y' all already have everything you need to launch this Bible app because of the years of work. Hand. Like, it's so God. It's so who God is that is.
- [18:13]
B
You're absolutely right. And you. And I'm. I'm glad you drew that out, because I think that's something that I think about a lot. You know, it's like everything we needed to be in position for that moment we had because God had kind of taken us on this journey and, and all the in the journey because of the failure, the journey didn't make sense. Like you're looking at going, God, why'd you tell us to do this? And why'd we, why did you help us overcome these obstacles if it wasn't going to work? And it was because he knew obviously something we didn't know. And he knew he had to put us in that position to be ready, to be able to be a part of that. So that's how it started. But I'll be honest, I still, even at that moment, seeing God do that, still did not have the faith to believe that we'd be celebrating what we're celebrating today. Because it just seemed like, well, this is a really cool moment, but everything kind of has a moment and then it stops. But in this particular case, it hasn't stopped. Like, it's been this kind of journey we've been on where what we're experiencing today is the absolute biggest growth we've ever seen in the 17 years that we've been doing it. And you are. We're celebrating a billion installs of the Bible app, which, I don't know, it's a bit mind blowing, but it's a total God story. We know it's not us for sure. He could have chosen a lot smarter people and a lot other lot of other places to do it. And if he, if he had chosen some people in Silicon Valley, I think the world would have looked on and said, this makes sense. Those guys in Silicon Valley know how to grow things, you know, to a billion people or even the publishers in New York, people would have said that makes sense. They have a lot of money and a lot of resources. It makes a lot of sense. But he chose a church in Oklahoma to do it. And I think there's only one reason that is that it's impossible for us to take credit. Like, it doesn't make any sense except for it being him. And so anyway, it's been such an amazing day.
- [20:04]
A
That's so cool. Why do you think now is like the most growth you've seen just based off what's happening in the world? I've even heard you say, you know, this is one of the most exciting times to be a believer. And, you know, we got to connect at Illumination, so we're also seeing the Bible being translated at such a rapid pace to all of these different languages and people groups that haven't been reached yet. So it is a really exciting time. But I feel like, you know, everyday person walking around listening to this podcast is like, why is this time so exciting? What is happening? Like, what is God doing that we're missing? And so why do you think it is happening so fast right now?
- [20:43]
B
You know, I don't. I don't know the answer entirely. I just know what we're witnessing and what we're seeing, you know, happen. You know, you've probably seen the stats, or maybe people have heard the stats, but Gen Z is connecting with Scripture at numbers that people just have not seen in the previous generation. Print Bible sales, you know, are up as well. And we love Bible engagement no matter what the format is. So most people might presume we want it to happen digitally. It's like, no, I just wanted to read the Bible more consistently. And technology was a tool, and it is helping people. But. But people are connecting with print Bible sales as well. It's happening in parts of the world that are considered post Christian, you know, where the church has struggled, you know, for maybe decades or maybe even centuries in some cases. I've been on a decline. And so there's definitely this revival that's happening globally, and you're watching it happen in college campuses, and obviously we've been a witness to it here in the United States as well. So there's this momentum that's building. I do think there's some factors that are contributing to it. I mean, I do think AI is a component of what's causing it to happen right now, and in a way that maybe people might not expect. But, you know, it's different for this generation and for us today than it was 10 years ago or five years ago in that we actually have to question the veracity or the truth in almost everything that we consume. Things that look real aren't real. And that's unusual. That's like, not a normal thing that we've had to do. I mean, there's always been untruthful things, but never at the level where they look so believable, they look so trustworthy, and they're completely false and completely not true. So the kind of a positive consequence of that, if there is a. If you could call it a positive consequence, is I think people are hungry for truth.
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A
Yep.
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B
They're hungry for anything that can. They can count on, that is stable, that is not. Not sort of built on that foundation.
- [22:52]
A
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- [24:30]
B
If that's the case. I think the Bible is really built for this moment. I mean, like, God's word is designed. It's like the antidote to the problem that we have. So that's what gets me excited because I feel like everyone rightfully is kind of concerned about those challenges in the moment they're in. But I feel like the Bible's like the answer to it. Like, all of a sudden, it's going to get people. It is getting people interested and explained, exploring, like, what is this thing called the Bible? What is God's word? Like that. People call it God's word. What does that mean? And is it a source of truth I can trust and can I find answers? Because I cannot trust any of the other answers that I get. But this thing has existed for thousands of years. It has moved carefully from generation to generation. Where the translation work we're just talking about is, I mean, there's such care that's gone into every word and every punctuation mark. It's not something that got generated by a chatbot. It was something that's been carefully translated so it can be relied upon. In fact, here in November at the Museum of the Bible, they have the Dead Sea Scrolls on display. And you can go and see that thousands of years ago, this artifact, the words on it are consistent with the words that we actually see in our translations today. Obviously it's a different language, but when you look at kind of the meaning and the, the, the, the translation of the words, it's very, it's the same. And so there's not, there's really nothing else like that, you know, that we can rely on. So I think that's one of the factors that we see happening. There's also kind of a convergence of stuff happening with technology. If you see like what Elon's doing and Starlink and high speed Internet that's sort of covering the entire globe, you can take a small little dish in a solar panel into the most remote part of the world and you can be connected with technology quickly. And that's happening. The Bible is being translated, like you just mentioned, in these languages at a pace that we've not ever seen before, partly because of technology, but mostly just because of cooperation and coordination. So you kind of see what's God doing? You know, God's getting all these languages finished, Bible translating, these new languages. He's creating the pathways for the Bible to actually get to all these places, you know, in the world like you've never seen before. And he's creating a hunger in a generation for truth, which is making people open to the Bible that have never been open to the Bible before. So it just feels like it's a big setup for something pretty cool.
- [27:16]
A
It does. It really does. It's really cool how you explain that. Because on one hand, AI has caused this problem in a sense of you don't know what's real and you don't know what's true. And then on the other hand, AI has also rapidly helped the situation by giving, you know, the tools to. I don't. So it's, it's, it's interesting how there is so much good and also so much potential for bad. And I think about that with the truth thing. I mean, we were talking about this, and even my mom and grandmother were speaking this into my life because they, you know, have always spoken into our life and helped us so much. But now in this season of motherhood, they're. They've just been saying, man, y' all have it really a lot harder in some sense than we did because we didn't have all of this information coming at us. So, you know, we weren't overthinking every little thing we did. Whereas for us, it's like, there's so much information out there, and it's like, you know, and it always changes. Like, for them, it was the best to put your baby to sleep on their belly, you know, and now it's like, don't ever let them sleep on their stomach. And it's like, okay, so do I need to warm the bottle? But how are you going to warm the bottle? And is it vaccine or no vaccine? Can you take Tylenol? Can you not take Tylenol? It's like, there's so much stuff. And so, like, as a mom, you, like, you're questioning every single thing because there's so much information out there, and then there's so much false information out there and things that look real that aren't real. And for me, I was just like, okay, I gotta, like, tune that out. Like, that is not what's going to teach me how to parent chat. GPT is not what's going to teach me how to parent. Like, the holy sp is my counselor. The word of God, you know, God knit my baby together in my womb, and he allowed me to be their mother. And so I have to lean in to the word of God truly, to be like a stable mom who feels confident, just a confident mom. And the choices that I'm making for my kids and I think for. For everybody, whatever age you are, whether it's high school, college, motherhood, singleness, moving somewhere, whatever it is, like, there's this tendency to want to go to the Internet to help you navig how to go through life based off how everybody else is doing it or what Chat says or all this stuff. And not that there's not a place for that, that can be. Some of those voices can be good, but that cannot be the driving force of your life, or you will be confused and it will leave you anxious and even. Even depressed in some sense. And so for me, like, I find myself, if you're not constantly in the word or constantly staying disciplined like you said, you just naturally gravitate to the advice of the world or the ways of. But the word says, don't be transformed, you know, don't, sorry, conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And so I do think, to your point, like, the Bible is so necessary. It's always been. But the fact that we have something that is true, that has been the same from beginning to end, that he is the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And this word that was written so many years ago, thousands of years ago, still holds true, still stands true. Like, you can still read it, and it's so applicable to your life today. He can read it, and it's still the same hope of heaven. And none of that is changing, is like a breath of life in a world that's constantly changing with different advice, different opinions, different voices, all the different things. And so for me, yes, that is like my stability. That is my peace. That is where my confidence is found. And so I think you're absolutely right. I'm interested to hear, too, just with you being a tech guy and also appreciating tech for what it is. I love how you said, you know, you can trust this. It's not some chat bot. And all this stuff. When using AI with what y' all are doing, if you do, like, what does that look like? How do you. How do you not be afraid of technology? Because I do think sometimes in the church, people are hesitant towards, like, technology in the sense that, like, even when the Bible app came out, I remember everybody's like, not everybody, but a lot of people are like, you know, are you just reading on your phone? Or like, do you have the word of God? Like, the print? It's almost like that's a negative thing. It's not a negative thing, but they paint it like that. Or even with chat GPT, it's like, there's some good in that. But people are like, no, if you're a believer, like, you can't use this. Like, how do you find that balance of having discernment and doing things? I guess using it in a balanced way, that's actually helpful and beneficial and not hurtful.
- [31:38]
B
Yeah, no, that's a. That's a really good question. So, you know, I think first thing I would say is, you know, technology is a tool and tool. It can be used for good and it can be used for evil. It can be used in healthy ways, and it can be used in ways that are not healthy. You've Just even talked about some, you know, kind of in what you're just describing there and the types of negative things that it can, it can cause. And you do need discernment. And, man, it's really hard, you know, sometimes to kind of navigate what we, what you should do. I've been a big proponent for a long time of saying that we've got to use these tools for good. Like, we really need to use these tools in a way that can advance the kingdom. And that's what I've pretty much spent my entire life trying to do. And the Bible app is an example of where I feel like we've successfully done that or seen God use that as a tool. We said, look, let's figure out how we can use technology to take advantage of some of the unique attributes about technology that could help you form a positive habit around scripture, the ways that people can be reminded about being in the Word, maybe when they forgot to this morning. And your print Bible has a tough time reminding you sometimes times, but we have the ability with technology to be able to do that. So we want to take advantage of all those things. AI is really, really interesting, though, because. Because I think there's a. A pretty big gap right now between what the promise of AI is and what actually AI does, you know, today. And we hear a lot about the promise of AI, everything that it's going to do, but I don't know, they're always aware of the current limitations, you know, of the technology. And because of that, there's a bit, you know, we have to be thoughtful, you know, somewhat cautious, or use discernment, as you were saying earlier, to try to say, okay, well, it's not, not normally do we have technology that is maybe not accurate a significant amount of the time, but seems to be accurate 100% of the time. Because that's sort of the nature of some of the way AI works. It seems like a very believable answer that's completely not true. But it may be true most of the time. So then you're like going, how do I know? Because I'm used to not having something that is that type of technology. I think it's probably just people having the awareness that this is a time that you just need to be thoughtful about how you use it. Not everything, just simply because it's new needs to be used. And not everything or almost everything needs to have boundaries.
- [34:17]
A
Yes.
- [34:18]
B
You know, on it. And even you just mentioned kind of in the way you were talking, I thought it was like, perfect. It's like there comes a point. It's like I need to have a time where I don't have the noise of all that in my life. And if you, if, if people listening don't have that time, like don't have a place where the technology isn't controlling, you know, their every moment of their life, then that's not a good thing. It's not a healthy thing, you know, for them. We're not. We as human beings aren't designed, you know, for that.
- [34:48]
A
Okay, y', all, I have a confession. I am already dreaming about pumpkin spice lattes. I love this time of year, but the cooler weather hasn't always been great for my skin in the past. So combine that with one of the busiest seasons of life. Postpartum. All the things, not getting enough sleep, your skin's just going to be a little unhappy. But it's kind of crazy because it's not not dry or irritated. It's actually thriving right now. And I have to tell you why, because it's so amazing. It's a blue lagoon face bomb from Adele Natural Cosmetics. And it is everything. It's waterless and waxless, so it just melts onto your skin. And I love that I can use it as a night cream under my makeup, around my eyes, all the things it's so hydrating, feels so good and soothing whenever my skin starts to get dry. It's also packed with blue tansy essential oil, which is amazing for calming your irritation. And the best part is it doesn't clog my pores up or make me break out or anything like that. It just soaks in and leaves my skin super soft and glowy. And I've really been loving everything I've tried from Adele. Honestly, this brand has really surprised me. Every product I use from them is amazing. They're a Christian company that makes small batch toxin free products in Texas and they emphasize ingredients sourced from local farms, which I think is so awesome. They're all about creating skin care that's rooted in love and purpose. And their products are super high quality. It's the kind of brand that you just feel really good about supporting. They even have like bible verses on their makeup and on their skincare, which I just love so much. So, yeah, they have skincare that's incredible, make you feel so glowy and so beautiful. But also their makeup is really, really, really good quality and becomes some of my favorite. It kind of gives you the natural look, but so really pretty. So visit Adele naturalcosmetics.com and use the code SADIE for 25% off your first order. That's Adele A D E L naturalcosmetics.com Use the code SADIE for 25 off your first order. Be sure to follow Adele Natural cosmetics on Instagram for tutorials, updates and encouraging content. And use my code Sadie for 25 off your first order.
- [36:46]
B
And so we at YouVersion, we've been very thoughtful. We use tech, we use AI in many different ways. And without getting kind of super technical about it, there's already things in our app that AI is kind of helping make better because we're able to use it kind of in the background. But what we've not done and quite intentionally is we've not had an open ended chatbot conversation with the Bible. It's not because we couldn't do it. It's not because the technology's not there to go and make it available. We could have done it three years ago when it first came out, but I said no because I really felt a check that it wasn't the right thing for us to do. Some of it is around safety. We have people that turn to the Bible app every day that are hurting, that are going through deep depression, that are suicidal and they're looking for answers. And it's just not responsible to hand them over to a chatbot to have those conversations because it's not equipped to do that effectively. And we're better off pointing them to resources and pointing them to scripture and not doing that through a chat conversation. And then the other side of it is right now, most people don't know this, but chatbots actually don't quote scripture accurately. Most the best chatbots that are out there, the best chat interfaces misquote scripture at least 15% of the time and some of them as much as 40% of the time. But it looks like it's real. It looks like it's exactly right. But if you don't have every word of scripture memorized already, you don't have a way to know that it's not like unless you go and check it every time. And part of the reason is how the technology works. It's been trained on Reddit, it's been trained on X or on social media. And so if you could just take all the times that people might have misquoted scripture out there and all the times that these words kind of go to seem like they go together, that's sort of how it gets its answers and how it derives the response. So it sounds like I'm anti AI, and the truth is I'M not anti AI at all. I'm just thoughtful about the limitations that it has. And I realized, though, it's a challenge because I happen to know quite a bit more about it than some people do. And I would just say it's probably wise with anything that's new to kind of ask, how could this be used to help advance the gospel? How can this be used in a positive way? I think that'll probably yield the right answers, but we also just have to understand the technology the best that we can and seek to do that. I think I want to be a lifetime learner. So no matter how old I get, which I'm starting to get old now, Sadie, but no matter how old I get, I used to be the young guy in every room. I was literally, like, the youngest person. And I had this kind of thing where I got into rooms that I should never have been in because I was, like, 24, 25 years old. And. And now I'm becoming the person that's the old guy in the room. But I'm committed also to being a lifetime learner. And I think that sometimes that tension of resistance around new technology kind of comes because we sometimes lack the humility that we need as we get older to just say, I want to be in posture of learning, not being the expert, but we're kind of. As you get older, you kind of think you're the expert. I want to become the expert at something. And so I've tried to always find new things I can learn. I became a pilot five years ago, and I wanted to take on a challenge and learn something new. But I've committed even with new technologies that come out, like, not just because I'm involved in technology, but even if I wasn't, I would want to just spend time learning it and spend time understanding it and finding out how I can use it. But I do think that requires humility because it's just so easy to feel like I, I, you know, I, I'm. I should be able to know all the right things. I do know all the right things. And you think that way. So my son, who's 17, he is like, an expert at this AI stuff. Like, he. I mean, and I. I talked to him, in fact, last night. I probably talked to him for an hour and a half or two hours last night. And it was. It's just been great because I'm learning from my son, and he's teaching me just, like, some of the very technical things about it, and I'm able to ask him Questions and, and, and learned, which is awesome as a father to be able to just have time to be able to do something like that. But it's also something I think we should just model in terms of how we, how we learn. And I think that'll keep us from having that just general resistance to change. You know, that happens because we have this posture of saying how do we do it? But you do. You still always have to be wise because it really can be used in ways that aren't, aren't great and aren't healthy.
- [41:32]
A
It's true. It's so good. That's such good advice. I, I just started a Instagram account for my 94 year old great grandmother. But she's like wanting like at first it was like me doing it and then she wanted to learn how to do it herself. So it was so cool. I set up the tripod at her house, taught her how to log in, how to respond to people, all this stuff. And I just have been watching her like take off with it and have so much fun. And I was like telling her, I just like thinking, think it's so cool that you are willing to learn that, that I could have done it for you, but I love that you are doing it for yourself and learn that. Because not every older person takes the time to understand social media and what the. And they don't have to, they don't want to. But I feel like it keeps her so, you know, it gives her just even more excitement for her days, you know, because she's like, oh wow. Like this is even, this is fun. Like now I have something to look forward to and it's a way to connect with my granddaughter, my great granddaughter. And it's a way that I can be an inspiration to world. And I'm like, even at 94, like you're never too old to start something new and like that is so cool. And you're never too young to start something. Like you said you were the young guy for so long and that was me. And it still is me. I mean I'm only 28. But what's really funny, I was like preaching at something recently with college students and I've always like been in the room with college students, high schoolers, and also in rooms with a lot of people that are a lot older than me and whatnot. But it was funny because I was going in it and I was giving these examples and I got off stage and one of my friends was like, hey little, little, tweak for the next time. All of your examples were about motherhood and you're speaking to college students. And I was like, oh, like, that's so funny because I've been in that setting for so long with college students. I've been the young person and now I'm a mom. But I'm like, okay, I need to think about that, you know, because sometimes you just don't realize, like, oh, I'm in a new stage of life. This is crazy because life just happen, happens, and you're not really thinking about it like that. So that was kind of funny to me. But I love everything you just said about the guard line, the. The guardrails and the boundaries. And I think it's so cool to hear someone who does know a lot more about it not be against it, but also just say, hey, use wisdom. Because for me personally, like, I. I don't know much about technology. I'm just like your. Your average girl who has chat GBT on my phone. So I. I can speak into it from that perspective of what I've seen is that it has been a helpful tool for me. I love how you say that is what it is. It can be helpful for me whenever I'm studying the Bible, whenever I say, hey, give me places that Peter is mentioned so I can go as I'm studying the life of Peter and read all these different places and parts that I might have missed, you know, that I might not have thought of, that reminds me of that. Or hey, sometimes I'll say, like the scripture on this. Give me some context. And again, you have to check it. It's not always accurate, but that has been really helpful for me. Where it has gone. Not. Not healthy for me. I'm not going to say not helpful because it feels helpful. But not healthy is whenever I use it for, like, reassurance or to give me a peace or like a guide in the sense of like, health concern or like something with my kids or whatnot. Not that it can't give good advice. It's just that I don't need to use that for like, my assurance or my peace or my comforter, because that's what the Holy Spirit does. That's what God does. And I think unintentionally. And instead of taking that time to pray through things, we go to chat for those things. Because with chat, you get a faster answer. You get a right, now, this is what you do and this is how you do it. And with prayer, sometimes it takes a little longer. You get a spirit check. You need to ask the Holy Spirit, you're going to have to listen and wait. But I was thinking about this this morning. It's funny, we're talking about this. Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall rise up on wings like eagles and soar. They should walk and not faint. They shall run and not grow weary. And I was like, like, okay, there is something to waiting. Like, waiting renews your strength when you wait upon the Lord. That's whenever, like, you walk and you don't grow weary, you know, And I was thinking about with chat, it's like, okay, I get this fast answer, and I might feel, like, assured in the moment, but then I don't actually have peace. It's like a false sense of assurance, a false sense of peace sometimes because it's not necessarily. Not always necessarily right. And so I'm not going to say it's not helpful, but I don't know that it's always healthy. And I do think it can unintentionally replace prayer in your life and replace the need for the Holy Spirit or God, that. That you think the need for the Holy Spirit and God. Because you're getting these fast answers that make you feel okay in those moments of panic or okay in those moments of questioning, or okay in those moments of doubt. And so for me, I'm just navigating it as a normal person. I don't know if that's helpful for other people to hear, but that's something I've had to check in my spirit, like, okay, this doesn't need to ever replace my prayer time. This cannot. This doesn't need. It cannot replace my prayer time. It cannot replace the Holy Spirit. And if I'm not careful because it's so easy and accessible, it can become that. If I'm not guarding my heart.
- [46:49]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. No, it is. It's technology. It's not God, and it's definitely not the Holy Spirit. But you're right, it can be convincing or even reassuring, like you're talking about, which is what's unique about the technology. It's part of what makes it amazing and kind of cool, but it's also what makes it something that we have to kind of use a lot of wisdom around because we're, you know, we're. We're relational people.
- [47:21]
A
And it talks to you so personal. That's the weird thing.
- [47:25]
B
Yeah. When you have a technology that's very relational, you can kind of mistake it, you know, for something that's not. So I think sometimes it's just keeping that perspective there Somebody sent me something yesterday. There's a law, I think, in California that they're trying to pass, and one of the provisions of it is that they want the chatbots to tell you that it's AI and not a person, and they want them to remind you of it every three hours of use. Because it's obviously become a concern that people lose sight or lose track of it not being a real person and they actually then begin to take on those attributes. And of course, the same would be true if you were using it. Like you're just mentioning where like this is like God speaking to me or I'm getting wisdom about a decision that I need to make. You're right. The instant answer for it just is pretty attractive, the fact that you can kind of get something quickly. But I love you using the verse there about waiting. I'm the type of person that likes to go fast. Like everything in my life has to move faster than it actually moves. And I'm just always a bit impatient. One of the things that I realized when I got to. I don't know when I became an old person, Sadie, but it happened somewhere. It was, it was older than 28, but I'm not yet 50. But somewhere in there is when it happened. And actually I know when it happened. When it happened was I was doing a Q and A one day with a group and I was on stage and then someone asked the question, how do you learn from younger people? How do you. And they asked, they wanted to know, how do I make sure I'm getting perspectives from young people in my life. And that was the moment that I realized I was the old person. Because I was, I was not the person that they were asking me about how I do that. And so. But one of the questions I do get is like, what advice would I give my. The 20 year old version of myself?
- [49:19]
A
That's literally what's going to be my next question. I love that.
- [49:23]
B
My answer, I've thought about that a lot and my answer is always the same, which is, I would tell the 20 year old version of me absolutely nothing. Because I know that if I had told the 20 year old version of me, like what was coming, like what I get to do today, that version of me would have wanted to take a shortcut, would have wanted to kind of just go straight for what I'm doing today, but yet God wanted me to actually go on the journey that I was on because he wanted to teach me things that I needed to learn. And I so much wanted to prove That I could do things that others thought I was too young to do. I wanted to prove that I could be the first to do this or the best at this. And so I needed to actually go through the failures. I needed to go through the parts that were hard. I needed to go through the times where I did what I thought God wanted me to do, but I didn't understand why. And I needed to have the waiting like you're talking about where it felt like I want an answer now, but I had to wait for an answer answer or maybe even I'm still waiting for an answer, you know, on it. And those, all of those things are like what God used to shape me and to be able to do what I do today. And I just know that if I gave, it'd be really hard for me to give any advice to the 20 year old version of me and have him not take it and just go the wrong direction with it. And so I guess the summary of all that is my advice is to actually, really, really recognize the, the sort of step by step, day by day nature of what a relationship with, with Jesus is like all about and how that, that being in tune with the Holy Spirit. Just like you mentioned the not chatgpt version of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is actually, is such important advice and it seems so frustrating for some people because it seems so, so slow and it seems so, it's, it seems so in the moment, which is people, people's minds are often in the future and they're not like in the moment. And, and I think that that's just really, really important. And looking back on it, I just, I wouldn't trade any of it. All the bad parts and the good parts.
- [51:42]
A
Yep, that's good. Oh, I love that so much. I feel like the Lord is teaching me that right now because you know, you look back and like you regret things or you're like God, why did that happen? Why did that happen? And, and then you get these moments every now and then to see like, oh wow, if that wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have met that person or I wouldn't have had this idea or this wouldn't have, you know, wouldn't have worked out the way that it did. And, and really sitting here now, I wouldn't change anything because I'm so grateful for where I'm at and what I've learned and who I am and the family that I have. And we actually just had a conversation about that last night as a family. We were looking Back at. We had like a prayer night last night as a family. It was very, very powerful. And we just saw the thread of God's faithfulness so beautifully as we just began to tell stories and we were talking about some of the hard things that happened years ago, and we were like, do y' all realize if that wouldn't have happened, though, we would literally not be sitting here right now having this conversation? And those are the moments you just see, like, okay, wow, God, you heard me in that space. You know, you were with me in that space. It was hard and it was confusing, but you never left and you had a plan, and you got to remind yourself of those things sometimes, especially when you're going through it, to realize, okay, one. One day, God, I'll look back and I. I might get to see the thread of your faithfulness in this and. And I will, because that's who you are. So I love that. I want to talk about. Because I know, like we said, we're celebrating 1 billion downloads and there is a Global Bible Month thing happening. How can everybody else get involved? How can we be a part of what God's doing on the YouVersion Bible app?
- [53:18]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So normally we're terrible about celebrating things. Like that's just kind of not have been a good thing for us. Us. When we did half a billion, the milestone for half a billion, I think I had a dinner with 30 people that was like our big party to celebrate half a billion. I felt like. And I really feel like this is God's prompting on this. I felt like we really needed to use this moment to celebrate the Bible and to help the whole world see that God's word is alive. And our milestone is literally just one data point. I mentioned kind of several others of, like, these incredible things that he's doing globally. And so we just said, let's make November Global Bible Month, that we're going to celebrate the milestone on a big arena event that we're doing in the middle of November, and it'll be broadcast in the app and on tv, and it'll be a moment to really celebrate the Bible. But let's make the whole month a celebration of the Bible and issue a challenge to everyone to try reading the Bible for 30 days in the month of November. So maybe you read the Bible every day right now, which is awesome. It's great. Then just invite somebody to do it with you in November. Maybe you've never read the Bible before. Maybe you've never, ever don't know a single verse from Scripture. You've tried everything else. Why not try the Bible for 30 days in November? Just see what God does. See if it does something in your life. And there's lots of easy ways to do it. You don't have to use the Bible app, but we're happy to have you use the Bible app. We've got, got I think 400 partners that have created 30 day Bible plans for the month of November. So there's just lots of different options to choose from. You can just do a proverb a day. You could read through the entire New Testament in the month of November, whatever. Ch. Like if you want to do five minutes, 15 minutes, whatever, there's going to be a lot of options for you to be able to, to be engaged. We try to make it easy. But if you want to use your print Bible and you're going to do it for 30 days in November, awesome. Do that. That Hallow Glorify other apps are doing 30 day Bible challenges and their apps as well. To join us on November 1st, we're lighting up Times Square celebrating the Bible and we, we're going to be at other places as well. I, some of them I'm not allowed to even name yet because they, they told me we can't name them until it's up there. I guess. So I will, we'll see. But it's coming. It's going to be just a really fun time and we've got influencers and politicians and athletes and all kinds of fun on people that the Bible has impacted that are also taking the 30 day challenge and going to read the Bible for 30 days in November. So anyway, we just want this to be a moment to celebrate the Bible. It is not about us. We're just using the milestone as a catalyst to kind of bring a lot of energy around it. I also mentioned Amazon prime is also celebrating Global Bible Month. So if you go to Amazon prime video, you'll see featured Bible content on the home screen of Amazon Prime. So it's a lot of fun and we hope that this isn't like just a big party, but really the beginning of something for people where they kind of turn and go, man, what is going on with the Bible? Why is everybody talking about it? Why are we seeing so many people mention that they're doing this 30 day challenge and maybe that's the on ramp that God uses to get people into Scripture.
- [56:39]
A
This is, is awesome. Back to why we're excited about the days we're living in. This is crazy. Like, I hope every listener is catching this, this is going to be a celebration of the Bible, really globally. I mean, he said time Square, they're lighting it up with the celebration of the Bible. All of these people taking the journey of 30 days. Hopefully that's just the start. Hopefully that launches them into an everyday thing. This is incredible. So if you are a believer, I hope you're celebrating this alongside of YouVersion Bible app and what's going on there. This is a, this is a win for the whole kingdom and so celebrate it, tell a friend about it, do it yourself, pray for it. This is an incredible thing that we're getting to be a part of. And like I said, even in the prayer before we started this podcast, thank you for what you do on a day to day basis to create a space for people to grow in their relationship with the Lord. It's such a blessing. And I, I so believe that to make the world a better place is for people to know who God is, to know who created them, to know their purpose and why they're here. And so the fact that you're, the work you're doing is introducing so many people to that through the Bible, being in their, in their pocket is a huge blessing. And so thank you for being on this podcast. Thank you for what you're doing. I'm grateful to be a part of it myself.
- [57:54]
B
Thank you, Sadie. We're so grateful for you and thank you for living out your faith so boldly for everybody to see. And thank you for telling me, helping me tell the story. It's been an honor.
- [58:03]
A
Thank you so much.