Hello, friend. Today, we have more ways to communicate than ever before.

A message can cross the world in seconds. Technology can translate our words, extend our reach, and help us do things that once seemed impossible. 

But making Jesus known has never been simply about how far a message can travel. It’s about people telling people about the One who came to us.

This week, we’re looking at what that calling means in a world where the tools keep changing, but the mission doesn’t.

In today’s edition:

🇧🇩 What happened when one believer refused to stop sharing Jesus

🤖 What AI will never become

🇵🇭 Why a Christian nation still needs the gospel 

When a Village Hears About Jesus 🇧🇩

Ripon became the first Christian in his Buddhist family about three years ago.

Since then, he has been sharing his faith and working with young people in his community in Bangladesh. Earlier this year, local Buddhist leaders summoned him and pressured him to renounce Christ and stop organizing Christian youth meetings.

Ripon refused.

But the opposition had an unexpected result. Ripon said that because of what happened, virtually everyone in his village now knows “there is someone called Jesus.”

Christians are a small minority in Bangladesh, and believers who leave another religion to follow Jesus can face significant pressure from their families and communities.

Yet believers like Ripon continue to make Jesus known.

The gospel can travel through many channels, but making Jesus known ultimately requires Christians willing to tell others about him. In Bangladesh, believers are doing exactly that, even when following Jesus comes at a cost.

How to Pray

🙏 Pray for courage and perseverance for Bangladeshi Christians facing pressure because they follow and share Christ.

🙏 Pray for protection and provision for believers separated from their families or communities because of their faith.

🙏 Pray that more people throughout Bangladesh would hear the gospel through the faithful witness of local Christians.

What AI Will Never Become 🤖

For about a week in September, the world wondered out loud if Artificial Intelligence might destroy us all. One AI researcher put the possibility at about 10 percent, within the next decade.

The media frenzy over the high profile warnings cooled, but the fears and uncertainty will continue. Even if AI doesn’t turn us all into paperclips, will it take our jobs? Massively alter our futures?

It’s not impossible.

But whatever AI becomes, there’s one thing it will never be: It will never be God. 

That’s an obvious fact for believers, but it’s good to remind ourselves. And it’s a good truth to tell those who don’t know Jesus yet. 

In fact, it’s an amazing opportunity. 

Because one of the most interesting dynamics about the AI discussion is how the language sounds apocalyptic. We’re pondering the end of the world and wondering how it will happen. 

But it seems like many people are more afraid of meeting their end by a computer than meeting their Maker at their end. 

The first thing could happen, but the latter certainly will. And that’s the meeting that matters the most. That’s the encounter we should be discussing with people anxious about what will happen to them in the next decade. That’s not unimportant, but the much bigger question is: What will happen to them in eternity?

This leads to a second important truth: Not only will AI never become God, it will never become human. Yes, it can compute information at an exponentially faster rate than the humans who feed it the data, but it will never be a person created in the image of God. No matter how human it sounds, it will never have a soul. 

That means our human tasks will always be important. Reading and thinking and writing and making things matter because God gave us those callings when he made us. 

And he also gave us another critical task: telling others about him. 

Making Jesus known isn’t a job for the algorithms. 

Thankfully, God does work through social media, and digital platforms, and websites and newsletters. These are good and useful tools. But they remain tools. 

Ultimately, disciples make disciples. That’s how God set it up. 

And there’s evidence that’s what people crave. In a world of endless screens and artificial interactions, many people long for something real, something better.

Friends, it doesn’t get any better, or more real, than the incarnation of Christ. 

Jesus was born into a real world and lived a real life. He probably carved real wood as a carpenter, and suffered real blisters when he walked miles to preach the gospel.

He touched real people with actual leprosy. He laid his own hands on cold corpses. He spit in his palms and rubbed mud into the eyes of the blind. He broke real bread and drank real wine. He held children in his arms. He wept with friends.

Jesus became earthy because he made the earth and he came to save it. 

He died on a cross made of real wood. He wore a crown of real thorns. He endured nails driven through his own flesh. He was laid in a grave made of real stone. And he came right out of it because he wasn’t just a man. 

He was God and man. He still is. 

He’s the King of glory, and he’s our flesh and blood in heaven. He wants us to join him, not just in spirit, but in our own flesh and blood on the day he returns.

This is great, good news, especially for a world wondering what lasts. 

The answer isn’t in the most powerful computer in the world. It’s in Jesus Christ. 

And for a world deeply anxious about all they don’t know, this might be the perfect moment to make Jesus known to them.

—Jamie Dean

A Christian Nation Still Needs the Gospel 🇵🇭

The Philippines is one of the most predominantly Christian countries in Asia. About 80% of Filipinos identify as Roman Catholic. But widespread familiarity with Christianity does not necessarily mean widespread understanding of the gospel.

Evangelical Christians remain a small minority, and churches across the country need pastors and leaders equipped to faithfully teach God’s Word. Radical partners with church leaders in East and Southeast Asia to strengthen biblical exposition and equip churches for the work of making disciples.

The Philippines reminds us that making Jesus known isn’t only about taking the gospel somewhere it has never been heard. It’s also about faithfully proclaiming Christ where his name has been known for generations.

How to Pray

🙏 Pray for Filipino pastors and church leaders to faithfully teach God’s Word and equip their churches to make disciples.

🙏 Pray for Filipinos who are familiar with Christianity but do not know Christ to hear and believe the gospel.

🙏 Pray for healthy churches throughout the Philippines to make Jesus known in their communities and beyond.

📍 Attention Worthy

📚 Amazon can sell you a book. It can’t pray with you. Independent Christian bookstores are finding new life by offering something harder to ship: conversation, community, and connection.

🛠️ Making things yourself still matters. The slow work of learning a craft may tell us something important about what it means to bear the image of a Creator. 

🖐️ A good translation should leave fingerprints. As AI makes centuries of Christian writing easier to translate, what disappears when the human translator does?