I recently learned that some pastors copy each other sermons, sometimes even verbatim and without permission. A pastor I followed admitted to sometimes plagiarizing sermons, and what’s more, he encourages people to do it.
He said there’s nothing proprietary in the kingdom of God. And if we hear something good, and it can help someone, we should feel free to steal it. Moreover, no one has original content because we all plagiarize Paul, John, Peter, etc. He concluded by saying, it’s all about sharing the gospel: God gave you eyes, so plagiarize.
I have a few problems with that pastor’s statement.
Let’s start with the definition of plagiarism. To plagiarize is to take someone’s work and pass it as your own. It’s nothing but a fancy word for stealing, and stealing is a sin. To encourage others to plagiarize is encouraging them to sin, and a pastor of all people should not tell others to sin. On the contrary, he should encourage people to share other’s work by giving credit, and if verbatim, with permission.
Secondly, I object to his claim that there’s nothing proprietary in the kingdom of God. Unless he is Christ, he cannot speak for every worker in the Kingdom. Many Christian creatives work hard to create content to share the gospel and may not appreciate people stealing their work and passing it as their own. You can share Christian content without having to steal it. He might be okay with others plagiarizing his work since he does it, but not everyone is like that, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Lastly, no one plagiarizes the Bible. Plagiarizing the Bible would mean using Bible verses without referencing them and make it seem like we came up with them. I don’t know if any Christian would dare do that with the Word of God! I think most Christian if not all always mention the book, chapter, verse, and even translation when quoting Bible verses. We indeed learn from the Bible, get inspired by it, and teach from it, but we certainly do not plagiarize it.
And even if all what he said was true, or conversely asked for permission to reproduce a sermon and give credit to the creator, he still shouldn’t do it. A pastor’s duty is to spend lots of time studying the Bible and receive wisdom and understanding from God and then share it to the people under his care. Copying sermons means the pastor didn’t do his job to divide the word of truth.
Furthermore, there’s so much depth and richness in the Word of God that Scripture alone can provide numerous sermons the entirety of a pastor’s life. I think it would be okay to copy a sermon if one can say he has studied the Bible entirely and have learned everything he could from it. Otherwise, sola scriptura is the motto.
It’s excellent to listen to other pastors, get inspired by them, and even quote them. But ultimately, everyone and especially a pastor should get their revelations from studying the Bible.
God gave you eyes, so plagiarize? No, God gave you eyes, so read and study His word.
