Joel Jacob

Andrew and Joel trade summer reading, seven books that shaped how they build. Range and kind vs wicked worlds, The Lean Startup on testing a hypothesis instead of debating it, Culture Making on why creating beats critiquing, and the evolutionary neuroscience the frontier labs are mining for the next breakthrough.

Nathan Sutherland of Gospel Tech rejoins all three hosts to talk parenting and video games. Why some games are engineered to overstimulate, how to tell whether a game is the cause of a problem or just a symptom, and a RESET framework (relationships, emotions, sleep, enjoyment, time) for discerning when play forms a child well and when it quietly pulls them away.

Andrew and Joel sit down with Scott Hurst, a self-described 'average' Toronto pastor, to hear how the AI conversation actually sounds between pastors. Less 'should AI write your sermon' (nobody is) and more rental agreements, meeting minutes, the capacity for mystery, and the pain points a shepherd should never automate away.

SEO is dead, so Andrew reframes the whole question: communication is how we love our neighbor, which means choosing the right medium. The hosts work through email, group texts, church apps like Planning Center, a Google Voice text ministry, and the new robots.txt era of search.

Wyatt Graham returns to read Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas — not the Pope “coming out against AI” but Catholic social teaching applied to the new thing. Technology is never neutral under the condition of the conditioners, the few oppress the many through its instruments, and prudential reasoning is the one thing AI cannot do.

Automation, vocation, and whether God cares if a machine takes your work.

A constructive case for using AI well in Christian life and work.

A year after his ChatGPT prayer went viral, John Piper revisits AI on David Platt's Radical podcast. Austin and Joel hear less of a reversal than a sharpening. AI is a real kind of intelligence, and what makes us human is the spirit, not the feeling.

Cars as technology: what the automobile did to place, the body, and neighborly life.

Bonnie Kristian on AI chatbots, companionship, and what is real in a conversation with a machine.

John Knox on the state of the faith-and-technology conversation right now.

A grab-bag on AI in warfare, kids and tech, and a wild news cycle.

The tech-driven explosion of sports betting, and a Christian read on risk and desire.

Autonomous agents are here; the hosts on agency, responsibility, and concern.

Jonas Kurlberg and Zoltan Schwab on AI, hermeneutics, and who gets to interpret Scripture.

Living faithfully as exiles in a digital Babylon, and what comes after the diagnosis.

Reading technology through the whole biblical story, from the garden to the city.

Gregg Hinzelman on working and building for God's glory rather than the metrics.

Predictions for the year in tech, held with sober hope rather than hype or doom.

A year-end map of where AI actually landed in 2025.

What happens to reading, writing, and teaching when AI can do the homework.

Why faithful Christians land differently on tech, and how to hold disagreement well.

Advent waiting against the technological impulse to seize, optimize, and never wait.

The Neo humanoid robot arrives; the hosts on labor, the body, and living with machines.

Setting the tone: neither breathless nor fearful, how to talk about AI with wisdom.

Wyatt Graham on theosis, human telos, and the transhumanist dream of becoming gods.

Is the AI boom a bubble or a turning point? The hosts weigh the signals.

What the gods of Silicon Valley believe, and how their faith shapes the tech they build.

Phil Cotnoir on the psychedelic revival and a sober Christian evaluation of it.

A bracing theological conversation on spiritual realities, AI, and the limits of the demonic.

Smart glasses are coming to the pew; the hosts on presence, distraction, and worship.

A round-table of Christian dads on screens, summer, and raising kids with wisdom.

Reading the latest gentle-singularity optimism against a Christian account of human nature.

Paul Hoffman on AI in ministry, the shepherd's irreplaceable work, and what machines cannot pastor.

Kelly Kapic returns on limits, finitude, and the freedom of being a creature who cannot do it all.

Cory Hixson on finding your place and calling in the Christian technology world.

The hosts poke at tech cliches and the lazy takes that pass for wisdom about technology.

When trust in the machine slips into worship, and how a Psalm-shaped discernment names it.

Responding to Wes Huff's history of technology and Christianity, and what a tech-savvy faith looks like.

A practical conversation on when and how to reach for generative AI with a clear conscience.

Glenn Butner on markets, formation, and how our economic life quietly shapes the soul.

Caleb Wait on building durable institutions, not just audiences, in digital ministry.

Brad Littlejohn and Clare Morell on policy, parenting, and a positive vision for family tech.

First in a series on church and tech: Chris Martin on marketing the gospel without manipulation.

Builders talk shop on working in tech across a shifting political and economic border.

Keith Plummer on what it means to be technologically literate, and why discernment beats reflex.

The hosts lay out what they expect from AI, platforms, and the church's tech in the year ahead.

Alastair Roberts reframes amplification, print, and even AI through the incarnation, where God's chosen medium is human flesh.

Bluesky surges as users leave X. Is the new platform actually different, or just the next hype cycle?

After the 2024 election, the hosts on Christians, technology, and political hope in a platformed age.

Reading Dario Amodei's "Machines of Loving Grace" essay: the optimistic AI future, weighed against a Christian anthropology.

Internet culture is not a subculture anymore. The hosts on how the online has become the air we all breathe.

Timothy Jacobs brings Aquinas to the question of whether AI can think, feel, or love, and where the boundaries really lie.

Kirsten Sanders asks whether rule-of-life frameworks can reflect insecurity, and how tech catechizes us into machine-like selves.

Meta's Orion glasses point past AR to a deeper bet about mediated reality, and what motivates the company building it.

Section 230, algorithms, and regulation: the hosts unpack a shift that could remake how social platforms work.

Cam Pak on building Faith Tools, a directory of Christian apps, without turning faith into self-service.

Adam Graber on predictions, groupthink, and disability tech as a Trojan horse for the rest of us.

Bruce Taylor on prevention over cure, the cultural mandate, and a business model that aligns profit with creation care.

Apple's Crush ad becomes a parable for compression, and the hosts ask what we lose when every tool is flattened into a screen.

Kevin Tuer makes the case for designing ethics into AI from the start, and for innovation as a form of stewardship.

Jay Y. Kim on how noise rewires our craving for silence, and why analog presence transforms where digital only informs.

Devin, Sora, and a flood of releases: the hosts try to make sense of an AI moment moving faster than anyone can track.

Joseph Minich explains how managed, mediated modern life quietly erodes the felt presence of God, and how hospitality restores it.

From CES 2024, the hosts look past chatbots to embodied AI and robots, and ask how Jesus would meet a machine with a body.

Seven predictions for the year in tech, held with sober hope rather than hype or doom.

As OpenAI's board drama unfolds, the hosts read accelerationism and caution through a Christian frame.

What is a teen worth to a platform? A conversation on youth, Instagram, and how parents and pastors can respond.

Jake Meador on industrial and digital revolutions, the choices they foreclose, and recovering embodied life together.

Matthew Chan shares how the Bible Project's reading tools grew from relational vision and real data on where readers drop off.

Ian Harber joins to weigh AI companions, a fragmenting internet, and what is real when the feed is full of bots.

A self-reflective episode on the show's own purpose, and whether faithful witness is better served by words or by building.

Samuel James argues the internet is not just a tool but a set of liturgies quietly forming what we desire.

PulpitAI's CEO makes the case for extending sermons into devotionals with AI, and faces the question of what only a local pastor can do.

Kelly Kapic traces how the clock turned time from gift into currency, and how ritual rhythms free us from the tyranny of efficiency.

Threads launches against Twitter, and the hosts ask whether yet another platform can be used without using us.

From processed food to 3D-printed meals, the Hungry Theologian joins to ask what technology has done to how we eat, and to our care for creation.

Derek Schuurman on engineering as a Christian calling: design norms, a holistic worldview, and what redemptive technology asks of the people who build it.

Apple's Vision Pro promises a new kind of presence. Does spatial computing connect us, or quietly isolate us? A first Christian read.

Humanoid robots are quietly arriving. The hosts on labor, the body, and what it means to love God with our strength when machines have hands.

A practical guide to staying secure online, and a Christian way of thinking about passwords, risk, and digital property.

If our apps are engineered to hook us, what does freedom look like? A practical, pastoral conversation on habit loops, dopamine, and rest in God.

Nathan Sutherland on parenting with technology: the difference between tools and 'drool tech,' and why hedges work better than walls.

Should our default be to adopt or to resist? Joel and Andrew disagree, working out what posture Christians should bring to every new tool.

Chris Martin on the anxiety social media breeds, the gap between our front- and backstage selves, and how churches should show up online.

Jess Joustra traces the WWJD bracelet back to its theological roots, and asks what it actually means to imitate Christ in the age of technology.

John Dyer on what changes when Scripture moves from print to screen, and whether the People of the Book are quietly becoming the People of the Screen.

ChatGPT has arrived. The hosts ask what it means that we make AI in our own image, and where moral agency really lives.

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra on a theology of play: when do games simply delight us, when do they disciple us, and how should parents think about both?

A walk through the gadgets of CES 2023, and a turn toward generosity: what should Christians make of an industry always selling the next new thing?

From Musk's Twitter to the arrival of ChatGPT, the hosts look back at the five tech stories that defined 2022, and why they still matter.

FaithTech founder James Kelly on the difference between exploitative, responsible, and redemptive technology, and why lament belongs in the conversation.

An introduction to AI for Christians: how it actually works, where the hype outruns reality, and the questions personhood raises for machines that 'think.'

As Musk circles Twitter, the hosts read the platform's decontextualized speech against ancient wisdom about news, words, and the formation of attention.

Two Christians in the tech industry on faithful presence, the weight of the work, and what it means to labor from rest rather than for it.

Ruth Cuthbert on dating apps, singleness, and the hard work of treating a profile as a person rather than an option to swipe past.

Is authenticity overrated? Using BeReal as a test case, the hosts ask what 'be real' actually demands of us, and whether any app can deliver it.

Jason Thacker on forming wisdom instead of just following rules, and how our digital habits quietly disciple us in an age of misinformation.

Why does a voice in your ears feel like a friend? The hosts on podcasting, parasocial closeness, and the difference between consuming and creating.

Why do faithful Christians disagree about technology? Wyatt Graham brings Romans 14 and theological triage to a framework that fits almost every tech debate.

If distraction is engineered, how do we push back? Five counter-practices for reclaiming attention in an economy built to fragment it.

Smart thermostats and sensors promise a frictionless home, but what is all that optimization forming us toward? A conversation about the hearth, convenience, and love.

Money is a technology too. From fiat to Bitcoin, the hosts trace the moral grain of currency and ask what generosity looks like in a crypto age.

Can we be fully present in a virtual world? A look at the metaverse through embodiment, the incarnation, and what actually makes us persons.

What does Silicon Valley believe about the meaning of life? The series opens by reading Mark Zuckerberg's vision of work against a theology of vocation, idolatry, and rest.