John distinguishes truth and falsehood, what proceeds from the mouth of God and what is purported to be truth but is a lie. That’s why John will later urge us to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). How do we test the spirits? How do know truth? By holding fast to the revealed word of God, which is truth (John 17:14-19). 

Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either (1 John 2:23, NKJV).
What comes to mind when you think of antichrist? Perhaps a mighty demonic being or a rival to the throne of Jesus, such as described by Paul to the Thessalonians: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:9–10).
John, however, has spoken to us of many antichrists. Yet whether singular or plural, they are all cut from the same cloth and present us with the same challenge in our walk with Christ and work for Him in this world. That challenge has to do with love of the truth and acting upon it. At stake are matters of life and death.
John addresses believers as truth-holders. “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21).
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Rice desired his children to reach a spiritual height that surpassed him. He did not want them to be content with low spirituality which he said was common among Christians in his day. Instead of a list of rules for them to check off, he provided a paradigm to measure every action taken. The principle of our actions first and foremost must be a high regard for God. A holy reverence for the Divine majesty and a thankfulness for the work of Christ on our behalf must dominate every decision. Indeed, without this sacred regard for God, Rice wrote, “none of our actions can properly be denominated religious actions.”

David Rice (1733–1816) was a Presbyterian minister who played a prominent role in the development of Presbyterianism in Kentucky. He was born in Virginia and converted under the preaching of Samuel Davies in the 1750s. After serving in Virginia for some time, Rice came to Kentucky in the 1780s and immediately felt the challenge of ministering to those living on the frontier. Despite the difficulties, Rice was able to aid in the organization and establishment of churches through his faithful gospel preaching. He also played a hand in establishing schools—including the Transylvania Seminary (now Transylvania University) which had its beginnings meeting in his home.
In 1792, the year that Kentucky was admitted to the Union, Rice played an important part in the State’s first Constitutional Convention. He argued for the insertion of an article allowing for a gradual emancipation of slaves. Although his speech, entitled “Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy,” provided a passionate apologetic for the cause, it ultimately failed to pass. When the revivals of the Second Great Awakening came to the frontier at the turn of the century, Rice advocated for moderation. He was not anti-revival as some have claimed, but he was opposed to the excess and bodily agitations that accompanied many of the camp meetings. Like a good Presbyterian, he wanted all things to be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40).
Rice married Mary Blair, the daughter of prominent Presbyterian minister Samuel Blair, and together they had 11 children. By all indications, the Rices were faithful in raising their children in the instruction of the Lord. History testifies that all of their children had their own families and remained faithful to the church. Church historian Robert Davidson, writing in 1847, recorded that one of their children was converted from reading a Bible that was left on his clothes when he was leaving home for the first time!
One can see the love that Rice had for his children in some of the last words that he spoke to them. It is often the case when death is near, trivial and superficial matters lose their predominance. We are no longer preoccupied with them, and our attention no longer gravitates toward them. Instead, we become obsessively concerned with things that truly matter. We confront eternity face to face. David Rice’s advice to his children nine years before his death exemplifies this. As Rice grew older, he wrote some final words to his beloved children, which have come down to us in a work entitled The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His by Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy-Fourth Year of His Age.
Rice began this work by sharing that he started to think about his final advice after the death of his wife. It was by this act of God’s providence he realized tomorrow may be his last day, and so he needed to share some parting words with his children. At the outset, Rice reminded them:
My dear children, frequently recollect and seriously realize that we must all appear at the dread tribunal of Jesus Christ; and that then you must give an account to him of the use, the improvement you have made of all the religious advantages and privileges you have enjoyed; and particularly those that you have enjoyed in the family in which you have been educated.
David Rice, “The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His By Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy Fourth Year of His Age,” in The Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine 2/6 (June 1819), 246.
It was his purpose to exhort them to live with this in mind, and the remainder of the work was to help them practically live thankful to God for their advantages. The advice that followed was written under three broad headings: On the Doctrines of Christianity, On Christian Morality, and On Conduct in Civil Society. What follows are some prominent points, not an exhaustive study.
On Christian Doctrine
Stand firm in your convictions, show charity to Christians who disagree, and do not get weighed down in trivial matters or doctrine of secondary importance.
Rice urged his children to be fixed and well-established in the fundamental doctrines of religion, the government of the church, and the scriptural modes of worship. He desired that his children would be steadfast in their conviction. Rice had instructed them in the Presbyterian tradition, which, according to his testimony, was the best system of religion. They were to be unwavering in their beliefs, and not let anything move them from the foundation that they stood upon. Yet, simultaneously, where good Christians disagreed on secondary or tertiary issues, Rice exhorted his children to show charity. “At the same time,” he wrote, “extend your charity to others as far as reason and scripture will warrant you, treating Christians of every denomination as brethren…Men may differ widely as to the mode of worship, and yet be acceptable worshippers of God through Christ.”
While it is important for Christians to know secondary matters well, Rice did not want his children to get weighed down in these issues at the expense of Christian unity. He was also concerned about pride. He wanted his children to study those doctrines that produced holiness in the heart and life. Doctrines that carried a lot of speculation and did not produce a holiness of character could be hurtful. This is not to say they were not important, but that doctrinal hobby horses could easily open the door for pride and temptation to unpack and settle in our hearts. Rice warned his children to avoid religious controversy if it were possible, but if it wasn’t, he spurred them to faithfully defend the truth. They were to defend it with humility and meekness, not out of pride and vainglory. Further, they were to never “engage the enemy, until you are acquainted with the ground you occupy, your own force, and the forces of your antagonist.” Another warning Rice wrote was to avoid “religious novelties” which, generally speaking, were nothing better than seducing errors. In every century, religious fads and movements attempt to sway the people of God; Rice encouraged his children to resist.
In exhorting them to stand firm in their convictions while cultivating a heart of charity for those who disagreed, he was very clear that they were not to have communion with those who were nominal Christians. He wrote: “Treat all of your fellow creatures with kindness and with the respect due to their several characters; but have no religious communion with those nominal Christians, whose principles sap the foundation of the Christian religion, lest you thereby countenance their errors, and partake of their guilt and punishment.”
The world today is changing at a rapid pace. Our culture is in the midst of a moral revolution, the speed of which is unprecedented in history, and as a result, many Christians find themselves wrestling with how to approach culture. On top of this, there is an alarming number of professing Christians who are sliding into progressive ideologies and deconstructing their faith entirely. Consequently, these kinds of conditions create an environment where everyone is suspect. It is very tempting in this climate for Christians to fight with other Christians. If someone does not espouse a particular view or does not agree with this or that position, they are treated with suspicion. Indeed, today we slap labels on each other faster than green grass through a goose. In this type of atmosphere, let us remember the words of Rice. We are to stand firm on our convictions. All Christians ought to be willing to go to war together on the primary teachings of Scripture.
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Companies like Meta want bots that can finish your sentences and fulfill your desires. They want their bots to be your companions, confidants, and first source of information. The victor in this market isn’t the one with the most money to spend. It’s the one who provides the most intimacy and lures you in. Personalization and intimacy are the new market movers. The AI tidal waves are coming quickly. How can Christians stay anchored and avoid being swept away? How can they know what is true in a world of illusions and take up their cross in a world where our convenience and preferences are front and center? I want to offer four core practices, four ways of reorienting our lives and rehabituating our hearts.

What the Model T was to 1908, artificial intelligence is to 2023. Let me explain.
It’s the latest in a long line of innovations with the potential to drastically reorient our lives, changing the way we work, communicate, express ourselves, and live. And it’s something I never thought I’d have an interest in. 
A few years ago, while I was a seminary student fumbling my way through classes on theology, church history, and biblical studies, if you were to mention artificial intelligence in a conversation, I would have looked at you the same way I looked at a Greek verb I needed to parse: foggy-eyed and more concerned with finding my next cup of coffee. 
Now, I spend my days working for one of these notorious AI startups. Tasked with growing it as quickly as possible. I’m no longer up to my neck in Greek participles and Augustine; I’m swimming in the currents of digital waters. So whenever I come across someone who approaches the challenges of AI with an eye to what it means for our humanity, my ears perk up. For me, that someone is Dr. Radhika Dirks.
Dirks holds a Ph.D. in quantum computing and was an early pioneer in the world of artificial intelligence. The title of her talk at a recent conference I attended immediately grabbed my attention: The Human Implications of Generative AI And What It Means for Our Future.
Dirks spoke of the three waves of AI development. Along the way, she prescribed core skills needed by humans in each wave to endure them. Keenly aware of the impact AI has on our personhood, this scientist didn’t shy away from the big question: Who am I? What does it mean to be a person in the waves of AI? 
The three waves she described are:

Explosion of Creativity,
The World of Illusions, and
A Race to Intimacy.

The first wave, Explosion of Creativity, has already happened; it’s been marked by the democratization of artistic creation. With the rise in ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other tools, anyone with internet access can create logos, generate images, and write blog posts. What used to take years to master now takes minutes. I consider it the most exciting—and least harrowing—of the three waves. It’s also the wave that we’re currently in the thick of, so it won’t take up much room in this article. 
It’s the other two waves—the ones that are just now reaching the shoreline of our lives—that present the greatest challenges to our personhood. For this reason, I want to share Dirks’ remarks regarding The World of Illusions and A Race to Intimacy and then offer four core practices for Christians to flourish within them. 
The World of Illusions
In March 2023, unprecedented photographs began circulating across the world. 
These photos documented Donald Trump’s arrest on the steps of a Manhattan courthouse. They showed a former United States president fighting off a group of NYPD officers attempting to detain him. With an aggressive scowl on his face and a sea of blurry onlookers, it was the kind of photograph that would one day make it into history books. Except it was completely fake. The product of AI.
This is the second wave of AI development, which Dirks refers to as The World of Illusions.
In this second wave, artificial intelligence grows more sophisticated in fabricating dreams, making them seem like reality. The lines between truth and falsehood reach a new level of blurriness. “Wars and rumors of wars” (Matt 24:6) takes on a new meaning when video footage of combat can be doctored up or created out of nothing in a matter of minutes. 
In this wave, Dirks shared, “We will be living in the hallucinations of machines.” 
A Race to Intimacy
After this world of illusions, the next wave gets far more personal. Dirks calls this third wave A Race to Intimacy. 
We can see this most clearly in Meta’s new AI bot, “Billie.” Billie looks like Kylie Jenner and invites people to “message me for any advice.” Billie is the first in a wave of what’s coming soon: humanoid, interactive, highly personalized AI bots that tell you what you want to hear, recommend products you’ll love, and appear to know you as well as anyone. That’s why Meta is marketing Billie as “like having an older sister you can talk to, but who can’t steal your clothes.” 
Intimacy is the goal of AI in the coming phases. 
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