For the past month or so, I’ve been getting about one text a week that’s a scam.

“Hey Shirley, haven't heard from you in a while, how are you doing in Fargo?” it might read, or “Hi Ammina, this is Lisa. I need to follow up with you on our plans for the weekend.”

Something casual, seeming to be an innocent mistake.

But if you respond “sorry, wrong number” they start to chat you up.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I think my assistant sent me the wrong number. I hope you don’t mind!” or “Oops! I made a mistake! I hope I didn’t bother you!”

Most people would say something like “no worries” or “it’s OK” and guess what?

They continue “innocently” chatting you up and leading you further towards a scam.

I choose to see this as an evangelism opportunity for people who clearly need Jesus because they are trying to spam and scam people.

“This isn’t Shirley. I don’t know you. But do you know Jesus Christ? I’d love to tell you about him,” I respond.

They come back with their script spam, of course, hoping that because I responded they’ll lure me down the pipe.

“Oh, so sorry to bother you! I hope you don’t mind!”

I then share a link to this page, and continue with my own script.

“The Bible tells us that we are all sinners, and fall short of the glory of God. So he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross, and then be raised from the dead, so that we wouldn't have to pay the price for our sin. Instead, for those who believe in Jesus, we have the free gift of eternal life. I'm guessing you started the day spamming and scamming lots and lots of phone numbers, but I'd encourage you to stop doing that and instead, get your life right with God while there is still time.”

As long as they run their script, I’ll run mine.

The text spam could be frustrating; it kind of is in the sense that there are such awful people out there making such a fraudulent and parasitic existence instead of working a real job.

But I’m just going to drown them in Jesus and the Bible instead of getting frustrated. Who knows. Maybe one will stop and think. And if it’s AI, I can’t think of a better way to inject confusion into the machine than the grace-filled anti-logical unbelievable does-not-compute salvation offered by Jesus Christ.