Plagiarising Elijah

Although I was fascinated with the pastor's sermons on Elijah, I moved to another province and never finished hearing them. Fourteen years later the tapes were being given away to clean out the church's library.  I was starting my own series, and as I recalled the quality of his teaching, I gladly took them home and set them with my own study books.

I compared the illustrations.  I checked the paragraphs.  Recognition came.  It was no wonder the preaching had been so good.  It was about 98% Chuck Swindoll's.

Plagiarism can take away your grade on a paper.  It can cause you to fail a course.  It can revoke your degree.  It can also destroy your testimony.  What I thought was excellence was parroting.  What I believed was sterling character was now tarnished.  No one knew but God.  Now I did.

Sometimes preachers compliment each other by saying they will steal each other's sermons.  I've never been comfortable with that.  Borrowed sermons are borrowed convictions.  The one who steals a sermon also steals their own spiritual growth.

Good preaching comes through conviction.  Sweating and grappling with a passage until it is opened up to you by God grows deep roots.  Study hammered on the anvil of time makes the passage your own.  Stealing takes away the reward of a job well done.

After one has finished their study, and then turned to other books, there is the satisfaction of discovering that one's thoughts are also similar to other Bible teachers.  The same Holy Spirit that opened the text for you also illumined them.

Do we ever use another's work?  Yes, we can.  We give them credit.  We do not steal it and then present it as our own.