![Practical Effects of Big God Theology [The Everyday Pastor - Ep. 47] @thegospelcoalition](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hdzdTHV7Az0/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
What practical difference does a high view of God’s sovereignty actually make in everyday ministry?
In this episode, Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst reflect on the doctrines of grace—often associated with Calvinism—and explore how a “big God” theology shapes assurance, prayer, evangelism, pastoral care, and suffering. They emphasize that God’s sovereignty is not a weapon for debate but a pillow for weary saints, a stabilizer in crisis, and a source of deep humility.
From hospital rooms to anxiety, from Scripture’s storyline to church history, this conversation shows why knowing a sovereign, wise, and compassionate God is not advanced theology—it’s everyday hope.
🔗 MENTIONED
▫ Commentary on the Gospel According to John by John Calvin – amazon.com/Commentary-Gospel-According-Calvins-Commentaries/dp/B004USNAAU?tag=thegospcoal-20
▫ How to Care for Sufferers (with Joni Eareckson Tada) [The Everyday Pastor - Ep. 30] – youtube.com/watch?v=SPQ5jgEblOg
Timestamps:
0:00 — A high view of sovereignty must include kindness
1:06 — What we mean by “big God theology”
2:49 — Sovereignty and assurance of salvation
5:14 — From “bad news” to “good news”
8:24 — Pastoral wisdom in teaching contested doctrines
12:52 — The Gospel of John and perseverance
14:33 — Everyone’s a Calvinist on their knees
16:14 — Preaching sovereignty through Bible books
23:07 — Judas, Acts 1, and God’s unstoppable plan
31:22 — Holding tension in Scripture
32:08 — Joni Eareckson Tada and suffering
33:21 — A sovereign God in hospital rooms
38:19 — Seasons of revival begin with seeing God rightly
44:41 — Humility: the fruit of the doctrines of grace
———
🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at tgc.org/together
📫 SIGN UP for exclusive content and updates for pastors: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/pa...
🎧 Don’t miss an episode of “The Everyday Pastor” with Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan!
▫ Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-everyday-pastor/id1772922853
▫ Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2oCDMJFvOI5P3yB2RlKhJy
✅ SUBSCRIBE:
▫ YouTube: / @thegospelcoalition
▫ TGC Updates: thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters
What practical difference does a high view of God’s sovereignty actually make in everyday ministry?
In this episode, Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst reflect on the doctrines of grace—often associated with Calvinism—and explore how a “big God” theology shapes assurance, prayer, evangelism, pastoral care, and suffering. They emphasize that God’s sovereignty is not a weapon for debate but a pillow for weary saints, a stabilizer in crisis, and a source of deep humility.
From hospital rooms to anxiety, from Scripture’s storyline to church history, this conversation shows why knowing a sovereign, wise, and compassionate God is not advanced theology—it’s everyday hope.
🔗 MENTIONED
▫ Commentary on the Gospel According to John by John Calvin – amazon.com/Commentary-Gospel-According-Calvins-Commentaries/dp/B004USNAAU?tag=thegospcoal-20
▫ How to Care for Sufferers (with Joni Eareckson Tada) [The Everyday Pastor - Ep. 30] – youtube.com/watch?v=SPQ5jgEblOg
Timestamps:
0:00 — A high view of sovereignty must include kindness
1:06 — What we mean by “big God theology”
2:49 — Sovereignty and assurance of salvation
5:14 — From “bad news” to “good news”
8:24 — Pastoral wisdom in teaching contested doctrines
12:52 — The Gospel of John and perseverance
14:33 — Everyone’s a Calvinist on their knees
16:14 — Preaching sovereignty through Bible books
23:07 — Judas, Acts 1, and God’s unstoppable plan
31:22 — Holding tension in Scripture
32:08 — Joni Eareckson Tada and suffering
33:21 — A sovereign God in hospital rooms
38:19 — Seasons of revival begin with seeing God rightly
44:41 — Humility: the fruit of the doctrines of grace
———
🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at tgc.org/together
📫 SIGN UP for exclusive content and updates for pastors: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/pa...
🎧 Don’t miss an episode of “The Everyday Pastor” with Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan!
▫ Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-everyday-pastor/id1772922853
▫ Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2oCDMJFvOI5P3yB2RlKhJy
✅ SUBSCRIBE:
▫ YouTube: / @thegospelcoalition
▫ TGC Updates: thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters
![Practical Effects of Big God Theology [The Everyday Pastor - Ep. 47]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hdzdTHV7Az0/mqdefault.jpg "Practical Effects of Big God Theology [The Everyday Pastor - Ep. 47]
What practical difference does a high view of God’s sovereignty actually make in everyday ministry?
In this episode, Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst reflect on the doctrines of grace—often associated with Calvinism—and explore how a “big God” theology shapes assurance, prayer, evangelism, pastoral care, and suffering. They emphasize that God’s sovereignty is not a weapon for debate but a pillow for weary saints, a stabilizer in crisis, and a source of deep humility.
From hospital rooms to anxiety, from Scripture’s storyline to church history, this conversation shows why knowing a sovereign, wise, and compassionate God is not advanced theology—it’s everyday hope.
🔗 MENTIONED
▫ Commentary on the Gospel According to John by John Calvin – https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Gospel-According-Calvins-Commentaries/dp/B004USNAAU?tag=thegospcoal-20
▫ How to Care for Sufferers (with Joni Eareckson Tada) [The Everyday Pastor - Ep. 30] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQ5jgEblOg
Timestamps:
0:00 — A high view of sovereignty must include kindness
1:06 — What we mean by “big God theology”
2:49 — Sovereignty and assurance of salvation
5:14 — From “bad news” to “good news”
8:24 — Pastoral wisdom in teaching contested doctrines
12:52 — The Gospel of John and perseverance
14:33 — Everyone’s a Calvinist on their knees
16:14 — Preaching sovereignty through Bible books
23:07 — Judas, Acts 1, and God’s unstoppable plan
31:22 — Holding tension in Scripture
32:08 — Joni Eareckson Tada and suffering
33:21 — A sovereign God in hospital rooms
38:19 — Seasons of revival begin with seeing God rightly
44:41 — Humility: the fruit of the doctrines of grace
———
🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Lets Build Together: Donate Today at https://tgc.org/together
📫 SIGN UP for exclusive content and updates for pastors: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/pa...
🎧 Don’t miss an episode of “The Everyday Pastor” with Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan!
▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-everyday-pastor/id1772922853
▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2oCDMJFvOI5P3yB2RlKhJy
✅ SUBSCRIBE:
▫ YouTube: / @thegospelcoalition
▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters/")
![AI and Emotion: Can Machines Feel? [Silicon Spiritualities - Ep. 5]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hpOfbCRK3q4/mqdefault.jpg "AI and Emotion: Can Machines Feel? [Silicon Spiritualities - Ep. 5]
What does it mean when a machine says, “I understand how you feel”?
That question is no longer theoretical. We live in a world of AI companions, emotional chatbots, and wearable devices that promise to track our stress, improve our sleep, and help us manage our inner lives. Some of these tools can be genuinely useful. But the more persuasive they become, the more we need to ask: are they helping us flourish as human beings, or training us to settle for a simulation of care?
Few people are better equipped to help us think about that question than Rosalind Picard, a professor at MIT and founder of a research group at the MIT Media Lab that develops technologies designed to recognize and respond to human emotion. She has spent decades working at the cutting edge of affective computing, a discipline that she founded. But what makes this conversation especially compelling is that she is not dazzled by the rhetoric of AI, but clear-eyed about both its promise and its danger.
In this episode, Roz helps us think carefully about the difference between reading the outward signs of emotion and actually knowing a person’s inner life. She explains why AI can imitate empathy without feeling anything at all, why emotionally intelligent technologies can sometimes support human flourishing, and why companion chatbots in particular should raise alarm bells for Christians. Along the way, we talk about consciousness, embodiment, meaning, and the temptation to become, in C. S. Lewis’s phrase, “too easily pleased.”
Roz joined me on Silicon Spiritualities to ask what AI can really know about our emotions, what it can never know, and why the richest forms of love, care, and meaning can never be reduced to code.
*Resource Mentioned:* _Deep Utopia_ by Nick Bostrom - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1646871642?tag=thegospcoal-20
00:00 Welcome to Silicon Spiritualities
01:02 A teen, an AI companion, and anxiety
02:04 The danger of companion chatbots
03:48 Wearables, stress tracking, and medical validation
04:51 Sleep, anxiety, and the limits of the body
06:48 What does the Bible teach us about emotion?
07:49 Why emotions matter
08:54 Alexithymia and difficulty naming emotions
10:02 What emotional AI actually measures
13:02 Acting emotional vs. being emotional
15:53 Why the language of AI can mislead us
19:23 Do humans imitate emotions too?
20:35 Can AI empathy be useful?
23:47 Could AI become conscious?
25:33 Why Christians do not need to fear the future
26:02 Being fully known by God
30:08 Why “it meets my needs” is not enough
31:21 We are too easily pleased
33:14 Children, AI companions, and learning love
35:19 Meaning, relationships, and the limits of bots
37:00 AI as an amplifier of us
38:57 What affective computing teaches us about ourselves
40:45 The complexity of the human body
43:10 Why AI can feel like a tsunami
43:50 Why we need better language for AI
44:23 AI agents, agency, and responsibility
50:28 What would a good AI future look like?
52:01 Helpful AI that does not pretend to be human
55:59 One principle for using AI well
56:58 Are you turning off your brain?
59:00 AI that supports human relationships
1:00:22 One inefficient habit Rosalind is keeping
1:02:33 What AI reveals about Rosalind’s heart
1:03:37 Why AI keeps you asking one more question
1:03:55 Closing invitation
———————
REGISTER for our 6-week cohort, Get Ready for the Age of AI - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/cohort/getting-ready-for-age-of-ai-2026/
PRE-ORDER The AI Apocalypse: A Survival Guide for Humanity - https://store.thegospelcoalition.org/product/9781956593211/the-ai-apocalypse-paperback
JOIN the conversation on Discord, along with other Silicon Spiritualities listeners - https://discord.gg/6FDsErApG8
Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate today - https://www.tgc.org/together
#ai #formation #ethics #technology #christianity #altools #christianformation")
![The One Where We Offend Everyone [The Deep Dish - Ep. 43]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iyVgJbz0Egs/mqdefault.jpg "The One Where We Offend Everyone [The Deep Dish - Ep. 43]
Courtney and Melissa discuss why Christians should not be quick to take offense and how we should live in a world of people who are. They talk about how to resist a victim mentality by getting your eyes off yourself. They commend overlooking and absorbing offenses when possible. They discuss why we must boldly hold to Christian doctrines that the world finds offensive, but that it’s possible to hold and even articulate offensive views in a way that communicates love and grace.
📝ON THIS VIDEO:
0:00 Cozy Earths Bamboo Sheets and Towels for Summer Comfort
1:28 The Culture of Offense and Victim Mentality in Society
7:36 Navigating Offense, Forgiveness, and Confrontation in Christian Life
14:26 Navigating Offense and Communication in Relationships
23:18 Navigating Offense and Sensitivity in Personal Interactions
28:49 Finding Healing and Understanding Through Faith in God
31:24 Balancing Offense and Compassion in Christian Beliefs
41:56 Navigating Relationships with Easily Offended Individuals
51:13 Pet Peeves and Learning to Overlook Annoyances
Related Resources:
How to Find Peace When You Feel Offended - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/peace-offended/
We’re Hurt, and Healed, in Community - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hurt-healed-community/
Recognizing Our Own Marks of Righteousness - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/deep-dish/recognizing-own-marks-righteousness/
For more resources, visit our website.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/deep-dish/
———
🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Lets Build Together: Donate Today at tgc.org/together
📫 SIGN UP for exclusive content and updates for women: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/tgcwomen/#subscribe
🎧 Don’t miss an episode of “The Deep Dish” with Courtney Doctor and Melissa Kruger!
▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-dish/id1794426491
▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1DQPjm9wmcZn63RtxrMFGL?si=ryUMMcdeRcWIII3VMX8FVg
✅ SUBSCRIBE:
▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition
▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters/")
![AI and Formation: How Does AI Shape Our Loves? [Silicon Spiritualities - Ep. 2]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j45x3ZVFFnA/mqdefault.jpg "AI and Formation: How Does AI Shape Our Loves? [Silicon Spiritualities - Ep. 2]
What happens when AI becomes good enough to simulate spiritual depth?
That question drives this episode with Michael Keller. Michael is lead pastor of Redeemer Lincoln Square in New York City, and he also brings a rare technical perspective to the conversation, having completed doctoral work in computational linguistics using early machine learning methods. In our discussion, he argues that AI can give us information, polish, and efficiency, but it cannot give us the one thing at the heart of Christian life: real relationship. It can help draft a prayer, but it cannot pray. It can mimic understanding, but it cannot know or love a person.
We talk about friction, formation, and the danger of outsourcing the very struggles through which God shapes us. Michael makes the striking point that AI offers the appearance of depth without the cost of it. That is true in ministry, in relationships, and even in our devotional lives. If prayer, preaching, and discipleship become frictionless, something essential is taken from us.
Again and again, Michael brings the conversation back to a richer Christian vision of the human person. We are more than our outputs. We are not defined by efficiency, performance, or the ability to process information. Michael joined me on Silicon Spiritualities to explore what AI can do for us, what it can never do, and why this cultural moment is forcing us to ask afresh what it really means to be human.
*Resources Mentioned:*
_Institutes of the Christian Religion_ by John Calvin - https://www.amazon.com/Institutes-Christian-Religion-John-Calvin/dp/1598561685?tag=thegospcoal-20
00:00 Welcome to Silicon Spiritualities
01:30 The AI-written prayer scenario
03:04 Knowledge is not the same as knowing a person
04:31 Why friction can form us
07:09 Can AI help with personal devotions?
09:58 AI, conflict, and the appearance of expertise
11:21 What AI is actually doing under the hood
13:11 Patterns, prediction, and personhood
14:18 “It feels like AI loves me back”
18:16 Where AI can help—and where it cannot
25:00 AI reveals our hunger for relationship
27:05 The image of God in an AI world
30:33 AI cannot take your identity
34:27 AI exposes the cracks in our cultural stories
38:30 Bible passages for thinking about AI
42:15 Why Michael does not use AI to write sermons
45:09 How AI catechizes us
47:28 A Christian counter-catechesis
52:03 What Michael hopes his church will learn
55:31 The sentence every AI tool should display
58:53 If you do not think about how to use AI, it will use you
1:00:06 One “inefficient” habit Michael is keeping
1:03:14 AI and the appearance of depth
1:06:52 Closing thoughts
———————
REGISTER for our 6-week cohort, Get Ready for the Age of AI - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/cohort/getting-ready-for-age-of-ai-2026/
PRE-ORDER The AI Apocalypse: A Survival Guide for Humanity - https://store.thegospelcoalition.org/product/9781956593211/the-ai-apocalypse-paperback
JOIN the conversation on Discord, along with other Silicon Spiritualities listeners - https://discord.gg/6FDsErApG8
Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate today - https://www.tgc.org/together
#ai #formation #ethics #technology #christianity #altools #christianformation")
