I was, by appointment of Caesar, recently Governor of the Eastern Province of Judea.  And it is my pleasure, honorable Senators of Rome, to present my report to you this day. 

     It seems there have been some malicious rumors floating around lately about a certain Christus who supposedly died there in Jerusalem but came back to life ---- or so people say.  Furthermore, some sources blame me as the one who killed him because I am a Jew-hater.

     Neither of these accusations are true.  Allow me to set the record straight so these falsehoods might be stopped.

     Let me give you my first-hand accounting of the actual events:

First of all – being Governor of Judea is a very difficult job.  You have no idea how irascible those Jews are!  Never has there ever been a people as cantankerous, excitable and rebellious!!  One does not govern Judea – One sits on it!  You must hold the lid on firmly –- with all your strength!

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We live in such interesting and exciting times. The new wonder is artificial intelligence, and I think it holds great promise for us. I use it sometimes as a research assistant. For example, for my Bible study two weeks ago, I wanted to focus on parts of the Passion that are unique to Luke’s Gospel. I asked ChatGPT to summarize them for me, with quotes from the NRSV of the Bible, which is what we use in worship.

It gave me a list within a second or two. I’ve been studying the Bible for about 50 years now, so I could look at that list and recognize it was correct, and use it to then frame our discussion. It’s not doing my work for me, but saving time the way a calculator helps with math and helping to leverage what I already know.

I saw a news article recently about a doctor who had used AI in a similar way. He had a patient with a particular form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome related to a particular gene. He fed the patient’s lab work and history into an AI. It suggested he look at a study that folic acid had been effective for this specific issue, and gave him a link to the study. He read it. He tried it. It worked.

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Wednesday night I met with the youth group. I had invited them to ask me any question on their minds, anything at all. I was somewhat surprised that most of their questions were about the Bible. It was fun.

The question that took me the longest time to answer was, “What is your favorite book of the Bible?” How do you pick a favorite? After a few minutes of serious contemplation, I decided it has to be John’s Gospel. My reasons include its incredible prologue, “In the beginning was the Word…”, his most detailed account of the Resurrection and the ways that he shows who Jesus is and what he means to God’s people and the creation as a whole.

One of my favorite moments in John’s Gospel is the exchange between Jesus and Pilate when Pilate asks Jesus, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Then comes the kicker. Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

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