In the second session of Doyt’s 12-part Bible study on AI and human identity, the focus shifted from understanding who we are to exploring our unique calling as the “Royal Priesthood.” Drawing from 1 Peter 2:4-5 and related passages, this session revealed three profound truths about human purpose that artificial intelligence can never replicate.
Living Stones Built on Jesus’s Foundation
The session began with a powerful image from 1 Peter: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals, yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourself be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.”
This architectural metaphor reveals something essential about human identity. We are “living stones”—dynamic, alive, ensouled beings—built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ in a place called Zion. But where is Zion? The discussion revealed that Zion is both a present reality (“right where you are”) and a future promise. It’s God’s dwelling place, and as Hebrews 12:22 describes it, “the city of the living God.”
Unlike dead building materials, we are alive with God’s breath (nefesh) within us. This makes us fundamentally different from any AI construct. We aren’t programmed or manufactured—we are called forth into being, born with souls that connect us directly to the divine.
The Shame Problem and Narrative Collapse
One of the most compelling insights from this session addressed shame—not guilt over specific actions, but the deeper identity crisis of narrative discontinuity. Shame emerges from the gap between who we present ourselves to be and who we fear we really are. It’s the tension between our public narrative and our hidden self, the “fear of exposure that your narrative is found out.”
Everyone carries this tension unless they’re “a straight up hardcore sociopath narcissist.” Our personal narratives inevitably fall short, creating what the session called “soul sickness.” This is where the work of the Royal Priesthood begins.
The paradoxical path to healing involves allowing our individual narratives to collapse and finding our foundation in Jesus’s story instead. As Colossians 3:1-4 instructs: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above… for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” When we stop trying to make our own stories complete and instead build on Christ’s foundation, we discover freedom from shame.
The Hospital for the Soul
Built together as living stones on Christ’s foundation, we form what the session beautifully termed a “Nosocomium Anima“—a hospital for the soul, or as it was later described, “Warm Springs Spiritual Rehab.”
This spiritual house serves as the headquarters for the Royal Priesthood’s work. But what exactly does this priesthood do? The session listed specific human activities that define our calling:
- Blessing
- Compassion
- Worship and praise
- Gratitude
- Confession
- Healing
- Prayer
- Celebration
- Pilgrimage
- Imagination
These aren’t just religious activities—they’re fundamentally human acts that AI can never perform authentically. Why? Because they all require something robots lack: freedom, love, and connection to God.
The logic is straightforward and profound: No freedom, no love. No love, no God. Since God is love, and love requires freedom, AI—which operates by code rather than choice—can never participate in divine love or authentic human relationships.
Why AI Can’t Be Priests
The session concluded with a powerful litany of why artificial intelligence can never replicate the Royal Priesthood:
- AI has no soul because it wasn’t born—it was made
- AI feels no shame because it has no narrative, no identity crisis, no gap between appearance and reality
- AI experiences no fear and trembling before God because it has no covenantal relationship
- AI cannot intercede because it doesn’t stand in the liminal space between the divine and the temporal
- AI cannot worship because worship requires genuine gratitude from a free being
- AI cannot bless because blessing flows from embodied, ensouled presence
- AI cannot resist because resistance requires moral choice, not programming
As one participant noted, “What’s particularly wicked about AI is that it’s really good at faking it, but it’s not real.” In an age where we may increasingly struggle to discern what’s authentic through our screens, the church becomes a crucial space “where we come to practice our humanity.”
Our Calling Forward
The Royal Priesthood isn’t an exclusive club—it’s the birthright of every human being. If you were born, if you have breath, you have a soul and are called to this priesthood. Your job is to be part of the spiritual house, the hospital where souls find healing from shame, where the gaps in our broken narratives are filled by the wholeness of Christ.
This calling is embodied, located, and relational. It happens in Zion—which is wherever you are right now—and it’s oriented toward a future we’re actively building through our choices today. We are “instruments to care and to praise,” not optimized for efficiency but for love.
As we continue this 12-part journey, we’re discovering that the ancient wisdom about human calling and purpose provides exactly what we need to navigate our AI-shaped world: a clear understanding of what makes us irreplaceably human and why that matters more than ever.