Bible Babel
November 30, 2006
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Best of Cerulean Sanctum, Bible Feedback : 43 comments
Growing up in the American Lutheran Church, you had one version of the Bible: the Revised Standard Version (RSV). When our pastor read from the pulpit, the RSV sang to me. Later, kids in the ALC got exposed to The Good News Version (AKA Today's English Version—TEV). But that came after my confirmation, so for me, RSV was The Word.
I memorized most of the Scriptures I know today out of the RSV, using a Harper Study Bible. Went through The Navigators Topical Memory System, a couple sets or more, all in RSV. I'd recommend the TMS to anyone.
But I can't recommend the RSV because they don't print it anymore.
Herein lies my problem.
It's a huge frustration committing to a version of the Bible only to watch it fade from use. AV1611-KJV-only adherents will probably hoot at my dilemma, but the fact remains: Bible versions that go "out of style" represent a thorny problem for people. Anything I memorize now won't jive with the memorized RSV passages I already know. And when I pull up those old RSV passages, they sound wrong since no one quotes RSV anymore.
My son and I read a Good News together. I love the remarkable line illustrations and so does my son. Several years ago, I read through the entire Old Testament in the TEV, and I loved the simple flow of the words (though the translations of the Psalms left a lot to be desired). For a child, the TEV is a Bible that works on several levels.
But I can't recommend the TEV because they don't print it anymore.
See the trend?
I've actually not started my son on intense Scripture memorization (no nasty comments, please) for this simple reason. I'm bothered by quoting a version that doesn't exist anymore, so I'd prefer him not to have to deal with that problem himself.
I sold Bibles for a living at one point in my jack-of-all-trades life. Zondervan had to create a new quota category for me because I sold (the then new) NIV Study Bible like no one else. They posted a sales contest at one point and I sold so many that they gave me their top model, a Moroccan Goatskin version that cost almost $200.
So I know Bibles.
What I don't know is how to reconcile the Edelen family's Bible dilemma.
My main Bible is a Zondervan/Kirkbride Thompson Chain Reference NIV from the ill-fated NIV alliance of those two companies. Hardback, too, since that was the first model offered. A hardcore Thompson Chain fan after encountering a KJV version of it, the idea of getting the relatively new NIV in a Thompson Chain made my mouth water. Nearly twenty-five years later and that old Bible's STILL holding up.
I'm not limited to one Bible, though. I have a plethora of versions at my disposal. I use a very handy NRSV Greek Interlinear at Bible studies, and I love to read for pleasure out of the energetic Phillips NT Translation. To me, no translation can match the astonishing flow of phrasing found in the Jerusalem Bible, thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien being one of the English advisors on that Catholic (horrors!) version. The Psalms never sound better than when read in the KJV. And the NKJV offers a solid translation that maintains some of the KJV's grace and none of its archaic English.
Here at Cerulean Sanctum, most of the Scripture verses I quote are English Standard Version (ESV). It's the closest I get to the old RSV.
So I use an NIV primarily, my wife's a longtime NASB reader, and my son reads from the TEV. At our church, they use NIV and KJV. We get a lot of The Amplified Bible (or as I call it, "The Multiple-Choice Bible") and The Message (which sounds dated already and has a host of other problems) in some of our small groups
Though I agree with the original translators in their preface to the 1611 KJV that a number of translations are required for thorough study of the Bible, it bothers me that we're creating this environment where countless translations exist, but everyone's using something different. Most small group Bible studies suffer from too many translations. People show up with a half dozen versions and the next thing you know, a simple passage winds up muddied, especially when the people in the study aren't experts in Greek and Hebrew (as if any ever are).
I'm not liking the Bible Babel we've created.
Too much of the babel we confront exists for no other reason than marketing. Each Christian publishing house has a fiendish urge to market their very own translation, gambling that it will strike a chord and become the next NIV. What else explains Holman (Holman!) drawing up their own translation? Zondervan pretty much owns the NIV, Thomas Nelson's got the NKJV, Tyndale the NLT, Crossway the ESV, and on and on. And the NKJV isn't the only KJV refresh; at least a dozen others exist, including the MKJV, KJV2000, and KJV21.
The list of English Bible translations is reaching an epic length. I'm not happy with that arrangement, but what to do?
My wife and I enjoy Jack Hayford's teaching. At our church, many people use his NKJV Spirit-Filled Study Bible from Thomas Nelson, and my wife's expressed interest in getting one for her own study. Hmm.
I'd like to go in the ESV direction since it's closest to my RSV upbringing, but honestly, I've really loathed what Crossway has done with the overall design choices of every ESV Bible they've released. The typefaces look terrible and are hard on my eyes, the paper's too thin, the references limited, and on and on. Plus, worst of all, there's no Thompson Chain ESV and probably never will be if my last call to Kirkbride is any indication. Yeah, Crossway has slapped some really funky covers on their ESVs, but if the insides look bad, who cares?
And then there's my son to consider. I mean, what's with the translations they're giving kids today? Ten years from now, do I want my son evangelizing others from memorized Scripture by pulling up International Children's Version (ICV) text written to a third grade reading level? By no means!
So what to do.
I'm considering making the switch to NKJV. My wife gets her Hayford study notes, I can have a Thompson Chain, and my son…well, hmm—again.
My son's only six, but reads at a fourth or fifth grade reading level, so he might be able to handle the NKJV. But that thorny issue of revision rears its ugly head again. The most recent NKJV goes back to a 1984 update. Will Nelson one day do to the NKJV what Zondervan did to the NIV by bringing out the terrible TNIV. Probably.
Poor kid. I don't have a good answer for him.
What are your insights into this issue? Readers, here's a chance for you to sound off.
Tags: Babel, Bible, Bible Translations, ESV, GNB, ICV, KJV, NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT, Phillips, RSV, TEV, The-Message
How to Think Like a Follower of Christ
November 28, 2006
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Benevolence, Best of Cerulean Sanctum, Boldness, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Discernment, Dying to Self, Evangelism, Faith, Godly Character, Hospitality, Humility, In the News, Judgmentalism, Love, Maturity, Relevance, Simplicity Feedback : 28 comments
In the last week, controversy flared around the recent prank pulled by a Minneapolis/St. Paul radio station. Michael Spencer, the iMonk, alerted me to this, and other blogs have pounced on the story.
In short, the radio station offered a Playstation 3 to parents who would drop off their baby at the station for the day. People lit up the phone line for a chance to let strangers have their baby for 24-hrs in exchange for the impossible-to-find new videogame player. When they found out the little social experiment was a ruse, they felt cheated.
Apart from the appalling fact that iMonk's e-mail started a catfight between the handful of respected Christian bloggers he cc'ed, the blogosphere's seen more than enough handwringing on this incident. Like whalebone-corseted dowagers in brocade dresses, their lorgnettes fogged from the mere thought of parental impropriety, the voices of outrage fan themselves and harumph, "The nerve of such people!"
Though the Marx Brothers' zany antics punctured the moralistic gasbags depicted in their films, 
I suspect the Lord's not laughing about our profound moralism. Moralists don't come off well in the Bible. They get lines like "Thank you, Lord, that I'm not like this tax collector sinner" and "This fellow is blaspheming!" and "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." Moralists will tithe their entire spice rack, and still miss the point.
Moralists are a dime a dozen. Find any bait shop in any podunk town in America, and grizzled faces tucked into the store's recesses will be more than obliged to regale you with their opinion on the latest indignation sweeping the country. They'll quote any and all sources to make their point, calling on long-dead orators like Henry Clay (old) and Seneca (older), or even some Asian philosopher like Lao-Tsu. Anything to drive their wicked barb of truth through the heart of this perceived scourge or that. In fact, I'd go far as to say that no country on the face of this planet brews up righteous indignation as the good ole U.S. of A.
Unfortunately, you can be a moralist extraordinaire and still wind up in hell.
How so? Because moralism's got nothing to do with Christianity. Jesus Christ didn't come to set-up another moral system. He came to change dead-in-the-soul moralists into living and active saints equipped not with the latest hodge-podge of self-righteous ire, but with the mind of Christ.
What else explains the Lord saying, "You have heard it said, _____________, but I tell you…"? He didn't support the moralistic status quo, He tore it off its foundation and installed Himself in its place. And by the way He ministered to others, He gave us a blueprint for how a redeemed mind acts out the truth of God.
Renewing our minds means allowing Christ to wash away moralistic responses to the situations that face us every day. We need to learn to think like a real follower of Christ, rather than a moralist.
I confess that I've spent too many years thinking like a moralist and not a true follower of Christ. I had a moral system erected the envy of pietists worldwide. My righteous indignation burned hotter than the core of the sun, and I could rip into an abortionist with mental talons honed to razor-sharpness. And you know what? None of that expanded the Kingdom of God by one picometer.
Want to think like a Christian? Here's what I'm learning:
1. The only way our "moral foes" are going to change is by coming to Christ.
Nothing else works, folks. Not political wrangling. Not outnumbering. Nothing. Only Jesus. We can't make anyone conform to Christ unless they're born again. The world's going to resist our moralism tooth and nail. Jesus, though, is harder to resist.
2. No one is beyond redemption by Jesus Christ.
In college, I knew a man who'd been the most wanted outlaw in Texas. A string of armed robberies got him a sentence of 500 years in prison. Then he met Christ through Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship. His change was so profound, he received a formal pardon from the governor. He came to study at Wheaton while I was there. We ate many meals together and I once drove him from college to see his brother who lived in my hometown. I'd trust Don with my wife and son. Jesus Christ had found him and utterly changed him.
It doesn't matter who our opponents are. No matter how despicable we consider someone, Jesus Christ is greater than his or her sin.
3. Always lead with love.
Sometimes we act as if every act of love toward our foes must be that fabled "tough love." That's a lie. Actually, it's an excuse for us to club them in the name of Christ. The Bible says this:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
—Matthew 5:43-48 ESV
The moralist leads with his self-righteousness, but the true follower of Christ always leads with love, even when dealing with his enemies.
Only as I was preparing this did a greater truth strike me about the Matthew passage. Jesus ends it with "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." While we always talk about context, no commentary gives an interpretation for that phrase that has ever satisfied me. But now I get it.
In context, the perfection Christ asks of us is to love perfectly. God embodies that perfect love because He desires that not one human soul be lost, despite the reality that our world is filled with people who hate Him. By us loving our enemies, we embody that same love of God.
Though missionary Jim Elliot wore a pistol in the steamy jungles of Ecuador, he took a fatal spear rather than use that pistol to take the life of someone certainly bound for hell. The man who threw that spear is a believer today.
Do we understand that kind of perfect love? Moralists never will.
4. Put ourselves in other people's shoes.
In those instances when I find it easy to judge, I first exchange roles with the person I'm ready to throttle. What do I know about him? Is he the way he is because he came home from school every day as a kid to a father who beat him to within an inch of his life? Does she act out her sin because her uncle raped her repeatedly from age eight until she packed up and hit the streets?
I know iMonk doesn't remember this, but I got banninated from The Boar's Head Tavern a long time ago because we clashed over people's pasts. I took the position that one's hard-luck story won't keep anyone out of hell. Sin is sin. If the weepiest story got the worst sinner into heaven, then the afterlife resembles the old TV show "Queen for a Day" and not the heaven Christ died to populate.
I still firmly believe that. However, that doesn't mean that I should add pain onto pain. Christ exchanged roles with each one of us, bearing your sin and mine to the cross. For that reason, I need to put myself into someone else's shoes before I go off half-cocked. If the savior thought enough to bear my sin unto death, then the least I can do is draw alongside others and help bear their burden until they also find life in Christ.
5. Ask the hard, humbling questions.
Bono's received an enormous amount of flak in some parts of the Godblogosphere. They say all manner of nasty things against him as if they know him personally and are fit to speak apt judgment.
Two things that provoke Bono's opponents more than anything else include his stand for more money to battle AIDS in Africa and his campaign to eliminate debts held against poor nations. For these he seems to draw more than his fair share of fire from Christians.
Personally, Bono's not at issue here. I don't know him and I don't generally trust third-hand reports about most worldwide or nationally-known figures. He may be the spawn of hell just like his opponents say or he may not. What concerns me more as a Christian is to ask where are all the "approved" Christian voices speaking out on battling AIDS in Africa and eliminating the debt load of poor countries? Why aren't we fronting for these causes? Why are we not battling for justice? Where are our nationally-known righteous preachers and teachers on these things? Why are they silent? Why must Bono step into the obvious vacuum they've left behind?
Worse yet, what about me? How can I castigate anyone if my saggy posterior's parked in some hoity-toity coffeeshop tucked away from the hardscrabble life faced by most of the world's people, my pinkie righteously extended as I sip my vente triple mochachino?
Anymore, the second I feel the urge to tear into another human being, I ask the hard, humbling question and the answer looks like a finger pointing right back at me and the rest of us in the American Church. Doesn't matter what the issue is, in some way we American Christians have fumbled it. And rather than sit around and grouse about how other people deal with that issue, the true follower of Christ has a response:
6. Stop talking, start acting.
If you and I are unwilling to act, then we should just shut up. Moralists go on and on about issues they never plan to personally do anything about. They fill their lives with idle chatter while callouses form on their backsides.
If you and I don't like something, then let's start acting to fix it. That's the Kingdom of God in action. And I'm not talking about the typical painless moralistic responses to fixing big problems, but the ones that cost us something. Pulling a lever in a voting booth against gay marriage doesn't ask anything. Befriending a gay couple does.
I've learned over the years that most foes of Christianity have never in their lives encountered a true follower of Christ. Nor do they have the kind of prayer covering we take for granted. Is it any wonder then that the Enemy's come in and sowed evil seeds on their unprotected ground?
Griping about people willing to exchange their babies for a day for a shot at a PS3 accomplishes nothing. We live in a world populated by rich churches that think they do a lot for the poor, but largely ignore them, even during Christmastime. Sure, they may contribute a few bucks here and there, but they never give till it hurts. In a lot of cases, they won't even give to people in their own congregations who have dire financial needs.
Untrue? I blog on these kinds of issues. You should read the private letters I get from desperate people who turned to their churches for help and were sent away.
Playstation 3s are selling for upwards of $3,000 on eBay. Desperate people do desperate things and they don't always think clearly. While this doesn't excuse parents willing to hand their children over to strangers for a day, to a poor family, a few thousand dollars means food, shelter, clothes, and heat for the cold winter months.
Was everyone calling in so desperately poor that their first thought was to resell that PS3 to feed, clothes, house, and warm their family? Hardly. Still, I'm sure a handful existed in the hundreds who called the radio station.
Where is the Church for those families? We stuff ourselves for Thanksgiving. We close off our holiday celebration to outsiders who might benefit from our outrageous largesse. We spend and spend and spend on ourselves, toss a few dollars in a Salvation Army kettle and pat ourselves on our backs for such stirring generosity as we push a cartful of expensive junk we don't need out to our SUVs.
Our society cares nothing for the poor on a personal basis. Yes, they seem to get some rare attention from us during the holidays, but otherwise we tend to let our governments take care of them. Few of us know any poor families personally, and even fewer of us take the time to reach out to them and welcome them into our homes, developing godly relationships that last. Yet that's what Jesus would have done.
Hate the greed on display in the Playstation 3 stunt? Let's check our own hearts and make certain our own consciences are clear of consumeristic greed before we point out someone else's. Some of us work two jobs to fuel our lust for more, robbing our children in just a slightly different way than those parents willing to give up a kid for a day. We may be giving up our kids every day, so who are we to talk! We may be affixed to the computer, blogging away as our children grow up without our attention. We may be into our hobbies, or even spend too much time reading Christian books.
What goes around comes around.
Let's give till it hurts this Christmas—and every day that follows it. Let's esteem others, even the poor, better than ourselves. Let's babysit the children of the just-barely-getting-by single mother so she can have time to get a couple toys for her kids. In fact, why not buy the toys for her kids out of our own wealth so she can have a break this year.
Don't just talk about Christ. Show Him to a dying world.
7. Weep.
This is my own opinion here, so you can take it for what it's worth. I can't back it with a ton of Scripture, but I believe it's true to the heart of the Lord.
I worry about any "Christian" person who can go into a secluded prayer chamber and fail to weep for the lost and hurting people of this world. If we're not in tears from time to time over the state of our foes, then I believe we're moralists and not followers of Jesus Christ. The stakes are too high for us to be that hardened.
It saddens me that I've learned these lessons so late in life. I write this so you younger readers especially will start thinking like the Lord much sooner than I have. (One day I promise, as a warning, to do a series on my disqualifications for ministry.)
God help us if we're moralists. A church of moralists always does more harm for the Kingdom than it does good. If that's your church—or even you—you have a tough choice to make. I pray that the Father gives us all grace to choose the better way.
Tags: Benevolence, Boldness, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Discernment, Dying to Self, Evangelism, Faith, Godly Character, Hospitality, Humility, iMonk, In the News, Judgmentalism, KDWB, Lost, Love, Maturity, Moralism, Playstation-3, Poor, Prank, PS3, Relevance, Simplicity
“Are We Really Being Used to Change People?”
November 27, 2006
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Benevolence, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Dying to Self, Evangelism, Godly Character, Hospitality, Love, Relevance Feedback : 8 comments
Are we really being used to change people?
—Billy Graham (Christianity Today Online, "A Greater Vision," 10/24/06)
Billy Graham, modern Evangelicalism's elder statesman, poses a legitimate question. Since that article debuted a month ago, the question's tugged at my heart.
We talk about the Kingdom of God a lot in Evangelical circles, but sometimes I feel we're missing the point. In some ways, we live out the Faith like the kid who has a celebrity run-in with Brad Pitt and thereafter insists to awed friends that he's now a lifelong pal. 
A simple phone call to Mr. Pitt would dispel all pretenses, but it sounds good. And who's got that phone number lying around anyway?
Any blogger worth his or her salt will instantly chime in and remind us that "we" don't change anyone, God does. No arguments there. But God decided to work His will through earthen vessels. Jesus' prayer that God would raise up laborers to go into the fields wasn't a call for the angels to get off their duffs.
As we go into the Christmas season, hundreds of opportunities will come for us to answer Graham's question in the affirmative. If we keep it in mind through every daily personal interaction, how can we not begin living out a transforming faith?
But it doesn't come naturally. We need to work at viewing every interaction we have with other people as an opportunity for the Kingdom or against it. At a time of the year when jerkdom abounds, swallowing our inner jerk after standing in line for a half hour to return a misbought gift would go far in showing the poor person on the opposite side of the counter that our lives run counter to the ways of the world. If I had a dime for every Ichthus-bumper-stickered car driven by some guy who just verbally assaulted a pony-tailed teen girl working in the least-desired spot in the store, I'd be well on the way to Warren Buffet-dom.
Christmas naturally opens people to Christ. Does your server at the restaurant know the Lord? How can you serve him while he's serving you? Or how about watching the kids for the single mom you know so she can shop for her kids? Offer to drive an elderly person to the mall so she can shop, too. And while you're at it, buy her lunch.
The possibilities are endless if your heart inclines to the sheep not yet in Christ's fold.
Tags: Benevolence, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Dying to Self, Evangelism, Godly Character, Hospitality, Love, Relevance
Discouragement & Thanksgiving
November 22, 2006
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Faith, Godly Character, Joy, Maturity, Persecution, Worship Feedback : 15 comments
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the LORD.
—Psalm 27:13-14 NKJV
My wife and I received more discouraging news Tuesday evening. I don't know why disappointment seems to gather around the holidays like a flock of morbid moths to a Christmas candle, but I'm getting accustomed to it.
We hear all the stories how more people die in December than any other month of the year. (I lost my Dad six Decembers ago, so I can point to my own experience of that truth.) And for every Jolly Old Saint Nick, there's some Scrooge ready with a "Bah, Humbug!" 
Bad seems to lurk around good for no other reason than sheer spite. Still, I think Job—who had leeway to talk—said it best: "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10)
We Americans aren't very good at being grateful in times of trouble. I think we used to be, but perhaps our decadence snuffed our thankfulness. I pray that's not the case. Still, we have a strange karmic approach to thankfulness that says that as long as the good outweighs the bad, we'll be thankful. If things slide the other way…well, all bets are off.
So we're going into another Thanksgiving carrying a load. It's not life-threatening, but it's still a bitter pill. I thought we'd avoid eating bitter pills on our menu this year. One snuck in with a day to spare, I guess.
I've generally thought of myself as a thankful person, though not perfectly. The one thing I've tried to instill in my son is gratefulness for even the smallest gifts God gives. Or as Habakkuk so ably put it:
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
—Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV
"To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments." I love that little flourish at the end. Music in the midst of discouragement. Think Paul and Silas in stocks in prison, singing hymns into the wee hours. I wish more modern worship songs said something about praising God when hell burst against us. That's the kind of strong Church I long to see. "You can flog us to our skin hangs in ribbons, but we'll go down singing the praises of Jesus Christ."
(That may come to that sooner than we think.)
Faith is thankfulness for goodness put on hold. Like Psalm 27 says above, Wait for the Lord. Perhaps that's why so few of us are truly thankful: we don't know how to wait for anything. "We'll take the despair now, please, but don't bother us with thankfulness." Sometimes, I think we believe thankfulness lives for another day. But it can't wait, can it? Thankfulness embodies what we are in Christ, every minute of every day.
I hear people saying that Easter is one of the holiest of Christian holy days, but I'd like us to give almost as much attention to Thanksgiving Day. Because as much as we'll be enjoying the fruits of Christ's resurrection, we'll be spending eternity thanking Him for it—and for every small gift we failed to appreciate this side of heaven.
Better practice now.
Have a truly thankful Thanksgiving.
Look for Cerulean Sanctum to return this coming Monday.
Tags: Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Despair, Discouragement, Faith, Godly Character, Gratefulness, Joy, Maturity, Persecution, Thankfulness, Thanksgiving, Worship
The Plagiarism Trap
November 21, 2006
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Discernment, Dying to Self, Godly Character, Humility, In the News, Judgmentalism Feedback : 24 comments
One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, "Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority." He answered them, "I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?" And they discussed it with one another, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why did you not believe him?' But if we say, 'From man,' all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet." So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."
—Luke 20:1-8 ESV
Last week, The Wall Street Journal—my personal newspaper of record—ran a front page article discussing the issue of plagiarizing sermons ("That Sermon You Heard on Sunday May Be From the Web"). Some churches and pastors think nothing of using a message already delivered, while others grow livid at the very idea. I've followed the issue across several blogs (Challies.com had the most extensive discussion), but it appears to me, now that the dust has settled, that the discussion danced around core issues no one confronted.
Ultimately, the issue of plagiarizing sermons sets multiple traps.
Consider the Luke passage above. Jesus sets up a fork for the Jewish leaders, forcing them down two roads, neither of which they wish to commit to.
To discuss plagiarizing sermons, we must begin with the ultimate source of a sermon message: Does our preaching ultimately have its source in men or in God?
The Bible makes it crystal clear that our preaching comes from God:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
…
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
—1 Corinthians 2:1-5, 12-16 ESV
Plagiarism argues the source of the words is wronged by their taking and should seek redress. It also states the plagiarizer deceitfully passes off the words he speaks as his own.
But if anyone reading now can make a case that anything you or I own has its final source not in God, but humankind, I'd love to hear that argument!
This brings us to the other fork. If we don't fully believe that God is the one who owns the words that come out of a preacher's mouth, then those words are merely words of clever men. 
If that's the case, then God have mercy on us because we've removed Christ from our preaching. The Jewish leaders fell into this problem with the source of John's baptism, and we merely repeat it.
The converse of this is that an avowed atheist could stand up in a church pulpit and read from the Bible with an actor's passion, yet would anyone define that as pastoral preaching of the word, especially by the standard some insisting upon in their attacks on sermon plagiarism?
When we discuss this issue, this is the major dilemma we face. We can get all riled up about preaching the word, but then we shoot ourselves by insisting that somehow we're the true source of that word.
But we aren't.
Here's what truly makes me shake my head: the people arguing most fiercely for punishing plagiarism are the same folks who uphold a high view of preaching. Yet by their very arguments, if they make a claim on a message, they strip out God and ascribe it to men. If they insist they're not doing that, then they agree that God is still speaking.
God is still speaking? Wow, that sounds a lot like what those nutty charismatics believe! Yet you'd be hardpressed to get many of the folks who would argue that sermons aren't messages that originate solely with men to buy that logical outcome.
If the primary issue here comes down to whether or not the Gospel is preached, does it matter if the person delivering the message was the first person to deliver it? If we humans can't improve on the Scriptures already delivered to us, then what is being added to an exposition of those Scriptures that makes it rooted to one church on one Sunday, delivered by one human being?
Many argue against re-using a message, but that's illogical if the message is inspired by God. Did the sermon get preached once and then no longer apply anywhere? Does God's message return void after it's been spoken once? It seems the same people who are arguing for stringing up plagiarizers hold a pretty low view of the Gospel, if they believe it only has a specific rendering to one set of people at one time and one place.
What's worse is the logic that traps them—again. If the message were that specific to only one group of people, then it takes on a prophetic utterance that calls the closed canon of Scripture into question. (At least by their own arguments against an open canon, it would.)
One of the arguments against one person using a sermon delivered by another plays up the pastoral component. Aren't we paying our pastors to preach the word?
The trap here wonders at what point a sermon no longer becomes relevant because someone else preached it previously. Isn't a sermon someone else preached still the the word if God is behind it?
What about giving credit to the originator of the message? Well, isn't the originator God? If you take a look at the sermons delivered in Acts, they bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, laying out God's redemptive plan in a similar way, yet no one ascribed any authorship to anyone else.
Traps, traps, traps no matter where one turns if one pursues the plagiarism punishment angle.
Perhaps the better case is to forget making the use of someone else's sermon a crime in the Church, ascribed or not.
What if we did? What if all we've done by stigmatizing the corporate use of preaching the word is to merely lift up the reputation of some preachers over others? I don't think we ever consider that reality. Do we rate a minister of the Gospel solely by his talent for preaching? If so, many solid Christian men would be disqualified from the ministry. If we believe that preaching the word is a true spiritual gift, then every pastor in this country has that gift. Does anyone reading this believe that? One hundred percent? All the time? If not, then shouldn't those pastors who may not have that supernatural gift operating at all times have access to the messages of those men who do have it?
Personally, I find the selling of sermons more reprehensible than any supposed plagiarism, especially because I believe God inspires those messages we hear. If it's only to recover the cost of distribution, I can see some justification for that. Even then, freely we have received, so freely we give.
I offer all this as food for thought. I'm not fully decided on this issue myself. What bothers me is our failure to frame our terms correctly and to get to their roots. Unless we do that, we fall into worthless arguments based on the laws of men and not on the truths of God.
I've read all the arguments upholding the idea of punishing plagiarism of sermons, yet if followed to their natural conclusions they always lead to the same trap: the exaltation of men over God. John Piper (who's written on plagiarism himself) wrote a book with the title Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. But don't we act like professionals when we get defensive on this topic of plagiarism? Doesn't it seem like we're protecting a celebrity status for pastors by arguing for the punishment of "plagiarizers"? We may insist that using a message preached elsewhere is deceitful, but perhaps the entire premise is flawed. As I've laid out here, the reasons we may consider it deceitful may have more to do with the self-glorying of men than God's honor.
Paul said that the important thing was not whether Christ was preached for envious reasons, just that the message of Christ got out (Phil. 1:15-18). If we keep that in mind, isn't everything else spurious?
Tags: Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Discernment, Dying to Self, Godly Character, Humility, In the News, Judgmentalism, Plagiarism
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