Pastors and Teachers, Don’t Steal Glory
Imagine a young man who desires fame and glory. One day he goes for a walk through the rocky streets of his village. As he admires the blue sky, hears the singing birds and feels the sun on his face, he notices a beautiful orchard of pomegranates. He knows who owns this orchard, knows the family that has tended it for generations. They have used their knowledge and experience to produce some of the most famous pomegranates in the region.
This young man has heard the family speak of the importance of sunlight and the right amount of water and right kinds of soil. But it’s not just their information, but their years of experience that makes them worthy of fame and trust. They have worked hard for many years to acquire this knowledge, and the result of their knowledge is seen in the beautiful fruit that grows in their orchard.
The young man envies the fame that this family has earned. He despairs of the years it will take to acquire the knowledge and the skills required to be as famous as this family. To produce something as beautiful as those pomegranates will take much work. As he thinks on this, an idea takes root in his heart, and he decides to take action.
One night he drives his truck to the orchard and secretly steals the pomegranates from 10 of the trees. He drives eastward until the sun comes up the next morning and finds a market five hours away, where nobody knows him or his family. As he begins to arrange the pomegranates to sell, people begin to gather around him, noticing the beauty of the fruit.
The young man is asked many questions about his family’s expertise to be able to produce such wonderful fruit. He begins to remember everything he heard from the family who owns the orchard, and he repeats it back to his listeners. They are amazed! The feeling he gets from receiving their admiration makes his heart swell. He feels admired and respected, and on top of that, he makes a good amount of money selling the pomegranates. No one in that village knows that he stole the fruit and the knowledge that helped it grow. He has stolen someone else’s glory and lied about it.
The Problem
What do you think of this man?
Would you respond by saying, “He didn’t hurt anybody,” or “the fruit was right there, and nobody told him not to steal it”?
Or maybe this comes to mind, “Nobody found out, so it wasn’t truly wrong.”
Of course you would not say these things. It is clear that this man was wrong when he stole fruit from the farmer’s family, and took the praise for the farmer’s hard work for himself. He also lied when he made it seem as if he himself had done the hard work of tending the orchard to produce such amazing fruit and gain such amazing knowledge. We can all agree that this is wrong and shameful.
So let’s replace “stealing pomegranates” with “stealing sermons.”
This is an important and pressing issue to address for all believers, and especially for pastors and men training to be pastors.
Plagiarism and Pastors
Cambridge Dictionary defines plagiarism as “the process or practice of using another person’s ideas or work and pretending it is your own.” Through the internet, countless audio and written sermon files can be accessed. These can be incredibly valuable in bringing understanding to difficult passages of Scripture. But these sermons should never be falsely claimed as your work if you didn’t do the research and the writing.
Artificial intelligence has made plagiarism even easier. It can pull from thousands of sources in a few seconds and give you a list of topics and ideas. It can even write your speech or sermon for you, based on its research. AI can be an incredibly valuable research tool, when used properly. The problem comes when you give the impression to those around you that you did this research and the work of writing.
Not all men who plagiarize sermon outlines or written text are wrongly motivated; sometimes there is a very good desire to serve the church and honor a pastor or writer who has been given deep understanding of Scripture through much study and prayer. But pastors, please check the motives of your heart. Do you really want to share these insights for the good of your church members? Or do you want to be viewed as wise and understanding? Some pastors may think, “If another pastor who is more mature than me has already done the hard work of understanding this, how can I add anything to it? Isn’t it good for me to share these useful insights with my church?” You do not honor that pastor or leader by taking their work and pretending it is yours. This is like the young man who stole the pomegranates and took the experience of the farmer’s family as his own, taking the glory for himself.
Someone might object that they are just sharing what the “experts say.” If you are truly interested in sharing the wisdom of others with your church members, then you should publicly say where you got your sermon or your information. It’s as simple as saying, “I was really helped to understand this passage by Pastor so-and-so’s sermon from September 1”, for example. But if you pretend that you are yourself the expert who wrote that sermon, you are taking someone else’s work and pretending it is your own.
Stealing violates God’s 8th commandment, and lying about it violates the 9th commandment.
Believers are also called to not “covet anything that is your neighbor’s” in God’s 10th commandment (Exodus 20:17). Followers of Christ must guard our hearts from the desire to compare ourselves to those who are being publicly praised for their skills.
Pastors are not made of a different nature than other believers. They too, must fight their sinful desires to gain praise by taking something that belongs to another pastor or writer and making it their own. We may not think this sin is that serious, however, it is so serious that many pastors have been removed from leadership because of it.
But does it really matter? Here are three reasons why it is wrong to steal a sermon:
1. God commands us not to steal.
In Exodus 20:15, God tells his people clearly, “You shall not steal.” This is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:19. In Leviticus 19:11 God says, “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another.” Stealing sermons violates God’s clear command. Taking a sermon you find online or in a book and speaking it as if you wrote it makes your hearers believe you did this hard work yourself. This is stealing, dealing falsely, and lying.
According to our cultures or our conscience, we may not feel that this is actually wrong. This doesn’t negate God’s truth that stealing is wrong, but it does expose a need for the conscience to be adjusted and reformed according to God’s standard. We may think it is in the category of what we call a “white lie”- something that is not true, but doesn’t really hurt anybody.
As believers, we must not justify our sin based on our own reasoning. God calls us not to steal, so we must submit our culture and our conscience to His authority. If our “sense” of right and wrong disagrees with God’s Word in any area of life, God’s Word must always win. Romans 12:2 tells us, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Ask God to help you believe and feel what you should in this area of plagiarism. “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
2. Pastors are to handle the word of God faithfully.
A pastor’s main job is teaching the Word of God to his church members and faithfully proclaiming and explaining it. Taking someone else’s sermon or outline and pretending it is yours means you are not receiving the wisdom God wants to give you as a pastor. He wants to teach you by His Holy Spirit how to understand a difficult passage of Scripture, how to think deeply about His Word and apply it to your specific people.
Other pastors’ sermons were not written with your church in mind. A faithful pastor should know his specific flock’s needs and how to apply God’s word to them. 1 Timothy 5:17 states, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” The verb here is “to labor.” This implies very hard work, fueled by a desire to honor Christ and serve His people. Finding a sermon online and claiming it as your own is not hard work.
There may be pastors who, in seeking to handle the word of God faithfully, read the work of other teachers who have done trustworthy research and study. After all, “there is nothing new under the sun!” (Ecc. 1:9) It can be very healthy and helpful to compare your work to commentaries or other sermons to make sure you’ve understood the text correctly. But the work of other pastors should be thought of as a safety net to guard against false teaching rather than giving you the core content of your message. In other words, consulting commentaries or other sermons should be one of the last steps in sermon preparation, not the first. Doing their own study first will guard a pastor from the temptation or tendency to use someone else’s work if they believe that they cannot add anything to what the other respected pastor has already done. And if, after their own study, a pastor uses the outline or sermon notes of another pastor, they should publicly give credit to the original writer to avoid any appearance of deception or plagiarism.
Believers are changed by interacting with the Word of God, and pastors need to be shaped by their own study. It’s not just about presenting an excellent sermon, but about the process of preparing a faithful one. God cares about the process, not just the outcome.
Pastors, do you view rightly handling the Word of God as your primary responsibility? Your church does not need you to read them an “expert’s” sermon. They need you, their leader, to be changed by the Word of God from within, to be gripped by those truths so deeply that when you preach to them they can sense that you yourself are convicted by the truth.
Growing in your skill as a preacher is a part of growing in faithfulness. It is not shameful to have to learn a new skill, but this will take humility. It will also take self-control and discipline. To have the kind of time needed to prepare a sermon means you need to plan your time well.
So here is a practical suggestion – don’t wait until the day or two before the church service to begin preparing. To bear the title of “pastor” carries with it a responsibility and a joy to set aside time to prepare your sermon. Maybe you are tempted to steal sermons because making one on your own feels too hard. The gospel of grace fuels hard work, and this is a good work for you to grow in. Seek to put off laziness and put on the mind of Christ, then get to work!
3. Receiving glory/praise from men will not satisfy
So often, stealing sermons is fueled by a desire to receive praise from other people. We want to hear the words “well done” and are willing to steal to get this approval from people. Pastors can fall into the trap of wanting to offer a beautiful sermon, so they get one from an “expert” or allow AI to write them an amazing one and pretend it is their own. They think they are avoiding the shame that they fear would come from not being prepared or from offering an insufficient sermon.
But will this truly satisfy the desire for glory?
Don’t forget Jesus’ words in John 5:41, “I do not receive glory from people.”
Paul echoes this thought when he writes, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).
Dear pastors, don’t forget that your “well done” will come from Jesus! Your goal in preaching is not to impress your listeners and make them praise you. Your goal must be to rightly understand what God has communicated in His word, and to speak this to your listeners in a way that they can understand.
How to Respond
If you feel the Holy Spirit convicting you of this sin, do not delay. If you have made a reputation for yourself as an amazing preacher by stealing sermons from other preachers or using AI, the shame of not living up to this standard might hinder your repentance.
Right away, you should speak to a trusted Christian who can pray with you as you take the next steps of repentance and obedience. Commit to viewing this issue the way God’s Word does and ask Him to renew your heart and your mind. Aim to establish your own routines of study and sermon preparation. Prepare your sermons with your church in mind, seeking to minister the Word of God to them as a shepherd feeds his sheep.
After you have done your own work and preparation, you can look at the other shepherds (pastors) and see how they are caring for their sheep (church). But if you share their wisdom with your church, you should clearly say where you got it from.
Glory is Coming
The desire for glory is planted in us by God. In Matthew 4, the devil tempted Jesus to gain glory for himself in a sinful way, and skip the way and the process that God had prepared for him. Jesus resisted this temptation, and every other temptation, and was victorious over sin. We, on the other hand, all fall short of his glory (Romans 3:23). We, unlike Jesus, give in to the temptation to gain our own glory through sinful means. Through faith, Jesus’s perfect life, death and resurrection results in our righteousness and us being restored to the Father, who has all glory. For the believer, our hope is now all bound up in Jesus and in the glory and the joy we will have when we see Him face to face.
Don’t give in to the devil’s temptation to cause you to grasp glory for yourself in this life by stealing a sermon from another pastor, or claiming work as your own that you did not complete. This is not true glory, and it will not last. In fact, it will lead to shame instead of glory. Look to Jesus, who has been seated at the right hand of God the Father, and from his place of honor invites you into a life of joyful sacrifice that is fueled by His Holy Spirit.
Rather than being like the young man who stole someone else’s fruit for himself, you will be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God!” (Phil 1:11)
