⚾ What Baseball’s ABS Teaches Us About the Standard for Interpreting the Bible

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Today, by chance, I came across an interesting baseball video on YouTube Shorts.

The pitch was clearly a strike. The batter, catcher, and commentators all thought so, but only the umpire called it a ball.

Immediately, an ABS challenge was requested, and the review clearly showed that it was a strike. In the end, the call was overturned.

Recently, while watching Bulkkot Baseball, I asked AI when ABS was introduced. In South Korea, ABS has been used since 2024, while in the United States, since 2026, the umpire makes the initial call and, when necessary, the decision can be reviewed through an ABS challenge.

As I watched this baseball video, I suddenly found myself thinking about how we interpret the Bible.

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1️⃣ What Is the Standard for an Accurate Call?

I said that I prefer the ABS system because of its accuracy, and AI also responded that it considers ABS advantageous because of its consistency and accuracy.

So I asked another question:

“Then what should be the standard for determining whether a biblical interpretation is correct?”

So far, I have held 73 competitions comparing my Bible summaries with the answers from Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude.

Throughout this process, I repeatedly noticed that AI sometimes presents widely known commentaries or traditional interpretations first, rather than starting directly from the biblical text itself.

So the question is simple:

If baseball decisions are verified by the actual position of the ball, then what should we use to verify an interpretation of the Bible?

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2️⃣ What We Should Check Before the Commentaries Is the Text Itself

The Bible is not a book that can be measured by a machine in the way a baseball can.

But I believe there is a clear principle for checking the accuracy of an interpretation:

First, we should examine the text itself.

Commentaries can be excellent reference materials.

But

❌ A commentary cannot take precedence over the biblical text.

If we first accept the interpretation of a commentary and then read the Bible, we may end up not reading the Bible to understand it, but reading the Bible through the commentary.

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3️⃣ What I Have Learned Through 73 Competitions

After so many discussions with AI, I realized that AI does not necessarily fail to recognize problems in commentaries.

Because AI draws from an enormous amount of data, it tends to present interpretations that are widely accepted by many people first.

But there is another way to use AI’s enormous ability to compare data.

“Does this interpretation really agree with the text of the Bible as a whole?”

✔️ That is what we should verify.

After 73 competitions, I realized that what matters most is not who won, but what method was used to understand the text.

Of course, I can also be wrong.

That is why the more important question is not:

“Am I right?”

but:

“What is the text actually saying?”

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✅ The Lesson Baseball Taught Us Today

ABS was not created to eliminate the umpire.

It was created to verify a call with greater accuracy.

Likewise, I am not saying that we should eliminate commentaries when reading the Bible.

A good commentary can be very helpful in understanding the text.

But the final standard remains the same:

✔️ Not human opinion, but what the biblical text itself says.

⚾ In baseball, we verify the actual position of the ball.

📍 In the Bible, we should compare the surrounding context and the whole of Scripture to verify an interpretation.

• In my view, this is the safest and most accurate way to read the Bible.

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😀 Final Thoughts

The baseball video I saw today was not simply a sports video.

Watching ABS made me think again about how we should read the Bible.

Just as we need to look at the ball to determine whether a call is correct,

we need to look at the biblical text itself to determine whether an interpretation is correct.

And commentaries can be consulted afterward.

The lesson ABS taught me today is this:

“What is the final standard for determining accuracy?”

In baseball, it is the actual position of the ball.

In the Bible, it is the biblical text itself.