Sonic Truth: The Power of AI Music for Bible Memorization, part 1
Music empowers memorization.
Music Empowers Memorization
Using AI to create music can seem like a parlor trick. Sure, it’s startling—okay, unsettling—that a platform like Udio can birth a high-quality song from nothing but a text prompt. But will this really matter for those of us not employed by the music industry? After all, who’s going to ditch playlists populated by real artists for tracks that AI spits out?
But the technology offers an unexpected upside for Christians. In fact, AI-generated music can make the most dreaded of spiritual chores—Scripture memorization—something Christians actually look forward to. Because now committing an entire passage to memory can begin by just listening to a song you enjoy.
The Power of the God’s Word, Unfiltered
The best way to get a taste of what I have in mind is to listen to AI perform versions I made of Psalm 1 and Psalm 117. For now, I’m not going to address the subject of using AI to create broadly Christian songs or worship music. Instead, I want to look specifically at what it could mean to turn passages from the Bible itself into music.
That’s because there’s something uniquely powerful about the Word simply as it is. Yes, we need hymns, sermons, theological toolkits, and much more. But in an era of superabundant Christian content, it’s too easy to look past the extraordinary power of simply dwelling in the Word itself. And spending time in a passage is the first step toward retaining it. In turn, knowing a vast amount of Scripture by heart can transform a believer’s life in a way that reading alone doesn’t. I’ll expand on this idea in the forthcoming second part of this post. And while many recoil at the word memorize, people commit their favorite songs to memory all the time. Imagine, then, what could happen if lots of songs you enjoyed listening to actually were God’s Word.
Imagine God’s Word as a Playlist
Imagine a playlist on a platform like Spotify that offered God’s Word set to music in a style you enjoyed. Or better yet, imagine a whole app dedicated to the concept, with more songs than you could ever possibly listen to. Want to hear Psalm 117, but don’t care for the metal style I used? You could just select it in another genre. Curious what biblical offerings other than Psalm 1 are available with similar jazz vocals? Just click for countless possibilities. For that kind of variety, we’d need far more people making tracks like these I linked above. But it is achievable now, especially as the technology improves.
For all the understandable alarm about AI, I think this particular use has great potential. Before generative AI, turning even a small amount of Scripture into high-quality music would have meant a lot of time and money. And even then, any particular style of music used would have had limited appeal.
But were an online community to form around this purpose, the reverse would be true. At low cost and relatively quickly, you could have the Word sung in music of every conceivable style. The most-played tracks for any given verse or genre could be highlighted for others to easily discover. Nothing like this exists yet (as far as I know), but there aren’t any technical hurdles in the way of it happening.
Change Offers Christians Opportunities
I doubt the makers of platforms like Udio had the Bible in mind as a lyrical source. But then the Romans weren’t planning to enable the spread of the Gospel with their road system either. Every era sees technological change. And likewise, in every era, God gives his people unexpected ways to leverage new developments for his purposes.