All things to all people — how Paul reasoned, not prompted

"I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you." — 1 Corinthians 9:22–23 (KJV)

Paul's famous line is often quoted as a strategy. Adapt yourself, meet people where they are, become like them so that you can reach them. All of which is in the text, and all of which is true. But the text does not stop there — and the deeper truth is in what comes around it.

Read the verses just before. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law… To those outside the law I became as one outside the law… To the weak I became weak. Notice the verbs. Paul became. He did not generate sermons for each audience and hit send. He went, lived among them, ate their food, learned their language, took on their burdens, reasoned with them in their synagogues and their public squares. He gave his body, his time, his suffering, his prayers. He bore the cost of becoming.

We live in a moment where generating texts adapted to many audiences has become cheap. An AI can rewrite an email in five tones in five seconds. It can adapt a Christian message for ten subcultures in a single afternoon. It can produce, at scale, a kind of digital "becoming" that resembles Paul's work — without any of the bodily cost.

It is worth being honest: this is not the same thing.

Paul's becoming was embodied. He aged into it. He was beaten for it. He prayed his way into it. The reason his small letter to the Corinthians has been read for two thousand years is not the cleverness of his rhetoric but the weight of a real Christian life poured into real words. The words have authority because the life has authority.

When we use AI to adapt our messaging, we should be calm about what is happening. We are gaining reach, and we are sometimes producing a polish that helps people read what we say. We are not, however, becoming anything. The tool does not make us more like the people we are trying to serve. Only love does — love that goes, eats, listens, prays, suffers, persists.

There is a small temptation here for Christians who work with text and technology. The temptation is to mistake the polished output for the pastoral work. Look — we are reaching so many. Reach is real. But Paul was not after reach. He was after souls. And souls are reached, finally, by real Christians who have actually become something for the sake of the gospel. The AI may help you write the email. It cannot help you sit with the grieving neighbor.

So use the tools. Polish the language. Translate the message. Adapt the tone. And then, having done that, go. Go to the gathered church on Sunday. Go to the difficult family member. Go to the friend you have been meaning to call. Go to the public square in your neighborhood. Become, slowly, what God is calling you to be — by the long, slow, embodied path that has always been the Christian path.

A question for the day: Whom are you tempted to reach by text alone, when the deeper gift would be to go?

A prayer, from the Book of Common Prayer's "Prayer for Mission":

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

AI is an aid, never a replacement for Scripture, prayer, or pastoral guidance.