When I wrote about The Big Three – Gambling, Alcohol, Sex – some of you might have objected to my phrase: “gambling in all its forms.” I hear, “Surely a just-for-fun small wager on a game or small stakes poker with some guys in the neighborhood isn’t hurting anyone.” Stay tuned.

One of my heroes just passed away last month. Ken Love who was part of our discipleship ministry in Alabama, passed on September 25.

This sentence from the obituary needs a bit of expansion:

On February 1, 1999, he made a life-changing decision and accepted Jesus as his personal savior.

As Ken tells the story, his wife had been dragging him to church for about a year. On that day in February he pulled into a business parking lot off the Troy Highway, south of Montgomery, and accepted Jesus…

I was coming off of a three-day drunk and had just dropped $50,000 on the Super Bowl.

He continues:

After that, I never took another drink; I never laid down another bet.

An alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, Ken went on to share his story and lead recovery programs. 27 years of effective ministry before his homegoing. I was Minister of Discipleship in Ken’s church from 2001 – 2006, and along the way, I taught Ken how to have daily time with God. I teach a simple template: Read, Reflect, Respond, Record.

Ken put that template into a spreadsheet with a tab for each day’s time with God. When he showed me the spreadsheet, he had recorded over 400 consecutive days! He would get up at 4:00 a.m., lift weights, and have time with God. (He would have been in his 60s at the time.)

When I left the church in 2006 to go full-time with The Navigators, Ken was a significant, faithful donor for many years.

Back to the opening paragraph and my caution against “gambling in all its forms.” Ken, how did you get started gambling? Answer: “Playing penny poker in the Marines.”

The Apostle Paul wrote:

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.(1 Timothy 1.12 – 14, ESV)

Paul continued:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4.7, 8, ESV)

I believe Ken was greeted by Jesus:

Well done, good and faithful servant…Enter into the joy of your master. (Matthew 25.21, ESV)

I mentioned San Antonio Spurs’ giant center, Victor Wembanyama, 7′ 4″ tall, when his team lost to the Knicks in last year’s NBA finals. “Wemby” is in the news again for something way more important than a basketball game. Here’s the headline from ESPN:

Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama not interested in promoting betting sites

He said:

I want to promote things that have a good impact, have a good influence with who I can share messages and values. Obviously, we earn millions and millions. This is not our biggest strength. Our biggest strength is inspiring. I want to inspire in a good way. That’s the strongest thing I can do.

Good for him. My basketball hero Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is a fine man, an extraordinary basketball player frequently described as humble and selfless. But Jokic “…became the first brand ambassador of Superbet in Serbia.” Disappointing.

Likewise the Manning family:

Supporters expressed disappointment that multi-millionaire, legendary athletes with clean, family-friendly reputations are actively pushing gambling onto the public. – Yahoo Sports

So Wemby, who claims no particular religion, from “secular” France, is principled enough to recognize evil when he sees it. May his tribe increase.

Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way. For they cannot rest until they do evil; they are robbed of sleep till they make someone stumble. (Proverbs 4.14 – 16, ESV)

As we consider the Delivering Cheese blog – faithfully doing the task in front of us – in the middle of reading the prophets, calling us to do that very thing…or else, we have a modern-day lesson. It also relates to yesterday’s blog on The Big Three – Gambling, Alcohol, Sex.

It’s the sad story of the great golfer Tiger Woods. I’m not against Tiger. I was a fan. It was breath-taking watching him close out a tournament in which he was leading. Day four, wearing a red shirt, fending off the competition, usually winning going away.

But here we are, he’s 50 now, and he’s just had his driver’s license revoked for five years for impaired driving. I don’t think he drinks alcohol, but he is hooked on pain-killing drugs. The ESPN report explains:

Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI and refusal to submit to a lawful test March 27 after his SUV clipped a trailer being hauled by a truck and rolled on its side...Woods told authorities that he was looking down at his cellphone and changing the radio station in his SUV, which caused him not to see a truck slowing down…Martin County Sheriff Deputy Tatiana Levenar wrote in an arrest affidavit that Woods was “sweating profusely” and his movement was “lethargic and slow” while she interviewed him...A Martin County sheriff’s deputy found two hydrocodone pills in Woods’ left pants pocket…

It’s not the first time:

In 2017, Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI after police officers found him asleep at the wheel in his running car, which had two flat tires and damage on the front and rear bumpers. Woods said he had taken a bad mix of painkillers…Woods checked into a treatment facility that year to get help with prescription drugs.

And this is BEFORE his horrendous accident in 2021:

In February 2021, Woods suffered significant leg injuries in a one-car crash outside of Los Angeles in which his SUV rolled several times and left him trapped inside. He later had surgery to deal with “open fractures” to his lower right leg, had a rod placed in a tibia and had screws and pins inserted in his foot and ankle during emergency surgery. Woods was hospitalized for three weeks following the surgery.

When did his problems start and why?

In November 2009 at 2a, Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant and a neighbor’s tree. [His wife Elin] Nordegren later told police she used a golf club to smash the vehicle’s rear windows to help pull her dazed husband out, amid a confrontation over reported infidelities. – Google Gemini

You can read a detailed analysis of the 2009 incident which exposed multiple affairs and destroyed his image as a “global icon of success and discipline.” – Global Sports Desk, Times of India, July 26, 2026

I remember at the beginning of his career, when he was winning everything in sight, people were saying, “He’ll break Jack Nicklaus’ record of winning 18 “major” tournaments. I thought, “Only if he keeps his act together over a lifetime.” Sadly, I was right. Tiger won 15 majors.

One difference between the two golfers? Jack has been faithfully married to his wife, Barbara, for 66 years. Tiger didn’t make it six years with his wife. Another difference? By all reports, Jack is a Christian who takes his faith seriously. Here’s a sample of reports:

• Jack Nicklaus is a Christian who has lived out his faith through personal prayer, integrity, and family values rather than performative public displays.
• According to his son, Jack Nicklaus II, his father chose not to attend group Bible studies on the PGA Tour, preferring instead to keep his prayer life and worship private.
• Nicklaus viewed the golf course as his place to demonstrate his values, believing that honorable conduct, respect, and kindness toward others mattered more than public displays of faith.
• His family life and parenting have long emphasized Christian principles, love for neighbors, and strong moral character.

By contrast, Tiger was raised Buddhist by his Thai mother and even drifted from that, crediting Buddhist teachings on restraint and personal responsibility as important influences in his life, though he has noted that he takes “bits and pieces” of the philosophy rather than adhering to every strict tenet. Indeed.

Scripture is full of warnings on the dangers of illicit sex and the adulterous woman. Proverbs 7 is one of the longest and strongest ending with:

With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life. (Proverbs 7.21 – 23, ESV)

I’ve thought from time to time how to summarize some of society’s evils. GAS comes to mind: Gambling, Alcohol, Sex. Meaning all forms of gambling, excessive use of alcohol and drugs, and illicit sex. That’s not all, of course. We could list consumerism and materialism, not taking care of the poor, and a host of other ills.

But in terms of the obvious things by which we harm ourselves and those around us, it’s hard to get away from GAS, and I’m stunned to find all three in one verse in Joel:

“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they

• have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, and
• have cast lots for my people, and
• have traded a boy for a prostitute, and
• have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it. (Joel 3.1, 2, ESV)

Note the last three:

• Cast lots (gambling)
• Traded a boy for a prostitute (sex)
• Sold a girl for wine (alcohol)

Among today’s top news stories is the Cornell rape case which gets two out of 3: sex and alcohol/drugs. Al Mohler summarizes and analyzes for World Magazine:

As the story broke, the young woman was claiming to have been the victim of a gang rape at the fraternity house that night. She admitted that she had been drinking and using drugs, and that at least some of the sexual activity was consensual, but some days after the incident she did accuse at least some of the young men of non-consensual sexual activity. As the story unfolded over the last few days, the moral disaster looms ever larger. Texts shared by young men in the fraternity advertised the availability of the young woman for sexual activity. There seems to be no reason to doubt much of her story. The campus police did report the incident, but the report they passed on to the local district attorney was incomplete, apparently including no accusation of sexual violence or rape. The story has exploded on the Cornell campus and the national press just can’t get enough of it. The story is complex and corrupt and vile and confusing, especially to those who try to operate out of the ethical system that is now established on elite campuses.

That ethical worldview refuses to make any moral judgments about the rampant debauchery of the campus culture until and unless the new moral boundary of consent is breeched. That is basically all that now remains of campus sexual ethics and rules. You can do anything, with anyone, so long as there is legal consent given. That’s it. Most major universities make absolutely no attempt to place any meaningful restrictions beyond consent. Add free-flowing alcohol and drugs to the mix and you turn the local campus into a weekend bacchanalia. – Al Mohler

Sad. And proving that in some areas, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Joel 2 opens with a nice definition of “Day of the Lord.”

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come. (Joel 2.1 – 2, NIV)

I think “Day of the Lord” is always negative. A day of judgment. By contrast, the New Testament sometimes talks about the “Glorious Appearing” at Jesus’ second coming. The Glorious Appearing is positive; the Day of the Lord is negative.

Then the description of the locusts:

Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. (Joel 2.7, 8, ESV)

I’ve written about this before: a five-part series starting with Lessons from Locusts – Introduction. So let’s move along.

Then Joel calls for repentance:

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? (Joel 2.12 – 14, ESV)

And there’s a promise with respect to the locusts:

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. (Joel 2.25 – 27, ESV)

But Joel is remembered most, not for the locusts but for the promise quoted by Peter in his sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit...And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved… (Joel 2.28, 29, 32, ESV)

Again, an apparent two-part fulfillment just as with Hosea 11.1. Part of this occurred at Pentecost.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance…But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel… (Acts 2.1 – 4, 14 – 16, ESV)

A great event. The Spirit has come! Scripture has been fulfilled.

But this part is still future, is it not?

…wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. (Joel 2.30, 31, ESV)

But for now, Jesus’ promise has been fulfilleld:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14.15 – 17, ESV)

Our Prophets reading program takes us into Joel today. It’s a short book comparing a recent invasion of locusts to a future “Day of the Lord.” Eugene Peterson writes:

When disaster strikes, understanding of God is at risk. Unexpected illness or death, national catastrophe, social disruption, personal loss, plague or epidemic, devastation by flood or drought, turn men and women who haven’t given God a thought in years into instant theologians. Rumors fly: “God is absent” … “God is angry” … “God is playing favorites, and I’m not the favorite” … “God is ineffectual” … “God is holding a grudge from a long time ago, and now we’re paying for it” …

It is the task of the prophet to stand up at such moments of catastrophe and clarify who God is and how he acts. If the prophet is good—that is, accurate and true—the disaster becomes a lever for prying people’s lives loose from their sins and setting them free for God…

The event that Joel used as his text was a terrible locust plague that was devastating the crops of Israel, creating an agricultural disaster of major proportions. He compared it to a massive military invasion...

There is a sense in which catastrophe doesn’t introduce anything new into our lives. It simply exposes the moral or spiritual reality that already exists but was hidden beneath an overlay of routine, self-preoccupation, and business as usual. Then suddenly, there it is before us: a moral universe in which our accumulated decisions—on what we say and do, on how we treat others, on whether or not we will obey God’s commands—are set in the stark light of God’s judgment.

In our everyday experience, right and wrong and the decisions we make about them seldom come to us neatly packaged and precisely defined. Joel’s prophetic words continue to reverberate down through the generations, making the ultimate connection between anything, small or large, that disrupts our daily routine, and God, giving us fresh opportunity to reorient our lives in faithful obedience. Joel gives us opportunity for “deathbed repentance” before we die, while there is still time and space for a lot of good living to the glory of God. – from Introduction to Joel, The Message Bible

The book opens with the locusts:

The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.

What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. (Joel 1.1 – 4, ESV)

The result?

Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white. (Joel 1.5 – 7, ESV)

There’s more. Stay tuned.

As we wrap up Hosea today, it’s the “usual” condemnation for forgetting God:

But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. So I am to them like a lion; like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs… (Hosea 13.4 – 8, ESV)

“When they became full…they forgot me.”

Moses warned them:

“And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 6.10 – 15, ESV)

Hosea ends with a call for repentance…

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.” (Hosea 14.1 – 3, ESV)

…and Hosea’s last word is a reminder to discern God’s ways and “walk in them:”

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. (Hosea 14.9, ESV)

I’ve already written on my latest misgivings with AI in the form of ChatGPT. It’s entirely too chatty! Since then I’ve talked with four friends, two of whom are pastors, who use AI to help them in their work, and I’ve read more articles than I can count (since that’s all that’s in the news or on the OpEds these days). This blog will refer to some of those articles and lay out my position on AI, for what it’s worth. As you’ll see, I’m making observations and conclusions for myself. I’ll NOT be telling you what you should do. I hope this is my last blog on the subject, at least for a while.

Stuff I’ve read contains three basic messages:

• Apocalyptic: AI will destroy humanity; even AI insiders believe that, so we’re told.
• Praise: look at all the good it’s done already.
• Caution: it’s not human, but it pretends to be. Avoid it!

I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m not going to worry about or put much stock in the apopcalyptic predictions. First, there’s nothing I can do about it if it’s true. Second, it reminds me too much of stuff “they” have been feeding us for years. Overpopulation , global warming, for example. There’s always a group who wants to keep us in a “state of fear.” See The Purpose Behind the Panic. And often those who deploy a technology first want to write rules to keep others out. See AI and the Dangers of Electricity.

With respect to those who praise the technology, again, as Seth Godin pointed out, what I think doesn’t matter. The Amazing Things AI Is Already Doing for Humanity captures the point of view that AI is not causing the harm that was predicted AND it’s facilitated real progress in many fields.

On the problem that AI pretends to be human, I finally found some essays that share my concern. In Pygmalion’s Passion, Paul Kingsnorth shares an essay by Andrew Caspersen arguing that AI’s very nature is wrong:

Are there certain features or applications of AI that are inherently wrong? Yes! Marc Barnes uses natural law to show why conversing with a chatbot is a corruption of inter-personal communion. D.C. Schindler explains the essential duplicity of AI, which tricks the subconscious into accepting its personhood.¹

…

What I’m presenting is a very simple Christian argument against AI:

1. The human intellect was made in the divine image
2. AI seeks to replace at least part of our intellect in practice
3. Therefore, using AI would be a rejection of part of our divine image
4. A partial rejection of the divine image is a partial rejection of God Himself, one small act at a time.

There are two sources in the first paragraph above. Marc Barnes writes:

The nebulousness of the thing—ought we use the infinite-use machine?—forces me to consider a narrower case, a specific “use” of AI: generative AI in its form as the chatbot. 

It is obvious to me that it is immoral to speak with a chatbot—that you’d be doing a bad thing to type up a back and forth with Grok or Meta or ChatGPT or Truthly or Whoever, and that repeating this bad act of conversing with a fake person makes for a bad habit which will ultimately make you a bad person. 

…

Still, whatever category of wickedness we place the thing in—and I am prone to think of it as a form of “superstition”—here is where I stand: conversation with non-intelligence as if it were intelligence is disordered, a deliberate frustration of the natural end of the human act of conversation, which is for the sake of loving communion with another intelligence.  

This is the problem I recognized in my ChatGPT blog. The other source, D.C. Shindler, points out something I had also observed:

My rather simple contention is that AI is essentially duplicitous. In one sense, this is so obviously true it may seem hardly worth drawing attention to. But if the thesis is obvious, its significance is perhaps less so, and warrants more consideration and contemplation than we have been giving it. The reason it has such importance is that this new technology introduces duplicity more profoundly into the human soul than perhaps any other technology that the human spirit has yet devised.

I recommend you read all three essays in their entirety, Kingsnorth (Caspersen), Barnes, and Schindler.

So where are we?

• With respect to doom and gloom, we don’t know.
• With respect to net positive/net negative, we don’t know.
• None of us can escape certain applications of AI. It’s everywhere.
• The only thing I have control of is how and how much do I use it for myself. E.g., ChatGPT, Claude (Anthropic), etc.
  • Avoid it altogether (Caspersen’s, Barnes’, and Schindler’s position)
  • Use it with caution (my position)
  • Play with it “joyously” (Seth Godin’s position)

Does that make using an AI chatbot a “disputable” matter? I think it does. If so, does Paul’s counsel apply?

Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. (Romans 14.13, 14, ESV)

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor…So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10.23, 24, 31, ESV)

PS This essay needs a lot more work, but I’m tired of wrestling with issues that are mostly “above my pay grade.”

Yes, it’s October 4, so what? Regular blog readers might remember that I always recognize October 4…1957. I was 10 years old, and in the sixth grade on October 4, 1957, the day the world’s first earth-orbiting satellite was launched by the Soviet Union. It was called, simply, Sputnik, the Russian word for satellite.

Less than twelve years later, July 20, 1969, the United States put a man on the moon. Thirteen years after Sputnik’s launch, I was tracking Sputnik’s successors from a radar site in Turkey. Today, we carry in our hand a device that picks up signals from a constellation of satellites and tells us exactly where we are and how to get to where we want to go.

King Solomon was a very wise man, and he was right about a lot of things. I don’t think he was right about this one:

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. (Ecclesiastes 1.9, 10, NKJV)

Smart people continue God’s work of creation, and in many ways we are better for it. Let’s celebrate technology today. Another day we can bemoan some of the problems.

Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth… (Isaiah 43.18, NKJV)

_{This blog reprises most of what I wrote in 2025.}

I wrote yesterday about the Biblical David’s encounter with Goliath, a day which started with him delivering the cheese.

Being an airline pilot is largely a routine job describable as “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” It’s a routine job until it’s not. By now you’ve no doubt seen the amazing story of the Indian pilot Smit Machchhar who was attacked by his co-pilot while on a Flydubai flight to Israel.

I’m sure when Smit went to work that morning, he was envisioning yet another routine day. We take off, we fly to our destination, we land. Although not all his flights had gone that way. The Wall Street Journal piece published October 2 starts this way…

As an aviator, Smit Machchhar had piloted through an in-flight birth, turbulent monsoon skies and a high-wire landing in Greece that stretched his skills to the limit.

…and continues:

On Wednesday, the 38-year-old Indian pilot faced a midair incident of a completely different sort: a violent stabbing attack from within the cockpit.

Captain Machchhar fought off his attacker while in charge of a FlyDubai Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger jet to Tel Aviv, apparently managing to alert air-traffic control, open the cockpit door and allow passengers and crew to rescue the plane from a petrifying plunge.

A fellow pilot praised his character and assessed his actions:

Captain Teena Goswami, who worked with Machchhar at SpiceJet, first met him in 2019 and remembered him as a calm, humble captain who treated junior pilots with respect.

Pilots are trained to handle pressure, she said, but in an extreme situation people can freeze or surrender. Machchhar, despite being attacked and dealing with an aircraft that was losing altitude, had the presence of mind to open the cockpit door, make an announcement over the public-address system and call for help, she said.

“What he did was…I think that saved everything,” Goswami said. She described him as “very coolheaded, very calm” and said colleagues generally looked forward to flying with him.

There was a time Machchhar didn’t know if he would survive. He directed the pilot who had taken over the plane to land as soon as possible.

As he lay bleeding in the MAX 8’s galley, Machchhar spoke about his children and asked the dentist by his side if he could save him...[the dentist] told him, ‘God is with you, pray. Everything will be OK. We are with you.’”

The captain was just “delivering the cheese” until he was called upon to save his own life and the lives of 170 passengers.

Some went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep. For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind. (Psalm 107.23 – 31, ESV)