Should We Use AI to Translate Christian Resources?
With the revolution of AI tools, people have started to ask me about the potential for using AI to translate Christian books. For a number of years I have been involved with writing, translating, and publishing Christian resources in Thai. I currently teach church history and mission studies at Chiang Mai Theological Seminary, and previously I taught at Bangkok Bible Seminary while also working part time at Kanok Bannasan (OMF Publishers) Thailand. I have a desire to see good resources get into the hands of Thai Christians to help them spread the Gospel and to grow in their walk with the Lord. Compared to languages like English, Chinese, Spanish, or Korean, there are relatively few Thai-language Christian resources. With the advent of widely accessible AI tools, especially Large Language Models (LLM) like ChatGPT or Grok, the potential for fast tracking translation is really exciting. More books faster sounds really good.
That said, my experience of using AI translation for Christian content has been mixed. I have primarily used ChatGPT for translating back and forth between Thai and English. If you use a different AI model and different input languages, I imagine the results might be different, especially for translation into more widely used language like Chinese or Spanish, for which AI has more data to draw from. That said, here are the advantages and limitations of AI translation as I find them at the beginning of 2026.
Advantage 1: Initial Rough Draft
AI is unparalleled in producing a translation in record time, especially for short text, like less than 2000 words. When I want to translate a quote, several paragraphs, or a short letter, ChatGPT has been very useful in producing a quick, fairly accurate translation.
Limitation 1: Difficulty Processing Longer Texts
When I have cut-and-pasted longer texts, the likelihood of errors increases. Also, the longer the text, the more likely AI is to decide to abridge or summarize without asking permission to do so, and without telling me it has done so. Although technically you can upload a MS Word doc, PDF, or image of a page of text for ChatGPT to translate, it sometimes has trouble processing material in the attached document. As a result, ChatGPT will claim that it has given me a translation of the attached document whereas in reality it has only produced an abridgement, a summary, or a translation of only the first 10-20% of the document. As a result, if I have a longer text to translate, I will cut and paste it bit by bit into the chat window so that I can monitor whether it is translating the whole thing or not. ChatGPT will claim that it can take the translated output and place it into a Word doc or Powerpoint slide set for you. In reality, it does so poorly or incompletely, all the while gaslighting the user, claiming that it has done exactly what you have asked.
Advantage 2: Breadth of Vocabulary
Every human translator is limited by the range of vocabulary and expression that he (or she) has in both languages. If there is an expression in the source language that he is unsure how to translate, it can take quite some time in finding just the right way to preserve the original authorial intent in a way that makes sense in the target language. However, AI has instant access to far more linguistic data that any human does and can often quickly come up with native sounding turns of phrase that are an exact match for the original input. If a translator is unsure about the nuance or sematic domain of a word or expression, AI can provide a detailed rundown of when/where words should (or should not) be used, and whether they are best suited for an academic, everyday, or formal context.
Limitation 2: Word Choice
LLMs like ChatGPT are like auto-correct on steroids. Based on the data available to them, they take the best guess as to how something should be translated in a certain context. But sometimes the user does not provide enough context or special instructions for AI to make the linguistic choices that the user prefers. And sometimes AI choses words or expressions that a human author or translator would not choose, or would not prefer. In the context of English to Thai translation, ChatGPT consistently translates “theology” as เทววิทยา (the Thai Catholic word for theology) instead of ศาสนศาสตร์ (the Thai Protestant word for theology). For multiple reasons, Thai Catholic and Thai Protestant specialized vocabulary has developed differently such that basic words such as “church”, “prayer”, and “Holy Spirit” are translated differently. As a Protestant, I usually want my translations to use Thai Protestant terminology. However, if I do not specifically provide ChatGPT a list of preferred terms for translating specific words, then it will do whatever it thinks is best. And sometimes AI’s idea of what is best is different than my idea of what is best. Even aside from specialized vocabulary, sometimes I just don’t like the way that ChatGPT translates something. There is a certain word or expression that I would like to see used but ChatGPT chooses something different.
Summary
If you put plain text into the chat window, AI can often do a decent job on doing a speedy and accurate translation of material. But at the end of the day, you still need someone competent in both languages and sufficiently familiar with the material being translated to review the translation. AI may transliterate names differently than you might want, and its word choice may not be what you prefer. It may translate in a very wooden literal manner and sometimes it will summarize, abridge, or translate something other than the material you gave it without telling you it has done so. I think we’re going to increasingly see human translators using AI for a first rough draft. But if our goal is polished, accurate translations that are publication ready, we still need bilingual subject matter experts to review and revise the AI output.