Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch and in today's episode, we're asking the question, can AI help you find your soul mate? Uh, now this is prompted by an interesting article I read recently in the Atlantic, which was looking at how, like many companies, dating websites are trying to figure out the best way to use artificial intelligence in their product, even exploring whether or not AI can find your soulmate, sifting through the thousands of people on that dating website or dating app to find you just the right connection. And what's interesting is that you would think AI could bring a lot of benefit in that, but actually the data says the opposite is true. That actually companies are finding that artificial intelligence is no better at picking a soulmate for you. Then you feel like you have been. Or maybe then your mother has been in the suggestions that she has made. Uh, that's because psychological research tells us that perceived connections aren't always real connections. In other words, it looks good on paper. You should be connecting with this person, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't click. It hits upon the idea, uh, at least according to these companies, that there is something mysterious about love. Something you can't quantify with an algorithm. Uh, well, that something, I think is a topic the Bible has a lot to say about. Because even trying to use AI to match people, I think shows how we as a culture fundamentally don't understand what it means to love someone. Because what the Bible tells us is that love is not about the end result of just the right synchronizing of personality traits or hobbies or interests or backgrounds. Love isn't about finding the perfect match or to borrow from Jerry Maguire, the person who completes you. Instead, love is about something deeper, something more real and something more attainable. Let's just start with this. When God made Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, he acknowledged that Adam needed company. He makes the point. It's not good for Adam to be alone. What God was hitting on is the mission he was giving Adam. To fill the earth, to subdue it, to have dominion over it, is one that required reinforcements. Actually, if you look at the Hebrew language of that passage, when God says that he's going toa make a helper for Adam, he's actually using the word for military reinforcements. He's talking about partnership. And the reason why that's important is because the Bible has active, uh, language in mind when it comes to relationship. When it says that Adam and Eve were in the garden and they were naked and without shame, it has in mind a kind of intimacy that is workable. Working on intimacy, Adam and Eve are knowing each other, they're learning each other, they're collaborating with each other. Not because they're the perfect match for each other, but because they're the people that God has put together. In other words, what the Bible teaches is not this American idea that there's one person out there for you and somehow if you can sift through all the profiles, you can find that one person, but rather that a deep relationship, in this case a romantic one, but even with friendships, is about actively working to be known and to know another person, to fully love a person, uh, as you know them, and to be fully loved by a person. That aspirational language, to actually be able to be vulnerable with someone and not be ashamed implies a certain amount of communication, a certain amount of reckoning with who a person is. That's why the Bible has active verbs in mind when it talks about love. Like for example in Colossians 3:12, when the apostle Paul says to put on compassion, kindness and humility, no matter how much you have in common with a particular person, you are eventually gonna run into the parts of them that are broken. They are gonna run into the parts of you that are broken. The question isn't can you find a non broken person out there? The question is, can you become the kind of person who can love a broken person? That's gonna require growth in you. It's gona require vulnerability in you. When Paul says put on compassion, put on humility, put on kindness, he's implying that relationship with other people throughout the day is gonna require those things. The Bible I think has this vision in mind that really any man who loves Jesus and any woman who loves Jesus could make a marriage work if they surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ and become the kind of people who can truly know and love another person. The magic isn't in the matching, it's in the daily maturing of your Christian faith. That's what the Bible means by love. By the way, it's why 1 John 3:18 says, Let us not love in word, but in deed and in truth. Love is not a feeling. It's a commitment to fully knowing and to fully loving a person. And I'll just say this, it's not just a commitment to loving a person. It's a commitment to pushing past their sin. And this is where the gospel is so necessary in a marriage, in a dating relationship, or in any relationship. Because when you're in relationship with a sinner, you're in relationship with their sin. Which is why the Bible tells us in James 5 to confess your sins one to another, that you might be healed. Relationship is about pushing into a person's life despite their brokenness, and loving them with the love of Jesus. There's no magic in the matching, but there is a magic in growing into the kind of person who can be loved and who can love. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

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