Excerpt, The Sin of Spiritual Plagiarism
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Whether you’re surfing the web about goings-on in the church today or casually engaging in conversations with experienced leaders in the body of Christ, the mere search on the Internet or mention of the term “plagiarism” in connection with the congregation initiates a string of editorials online and long, in-depth discussions concerning the state of the congregation today.
On one side of the discussion, leaders talk about how the Internet has made today’s ministers lazy and trapped them in cycles of what some call “borrowing sermon ideas from others” instead of searching the Spirit through their relationship with God for their own unique messages. On the other hand there is this belief that in the present day church, a number of leaders just don’t care – and want the easy way out in their bible studies and Sunday morning services. Then there’s this group of broken believers, those whose lives have been disrupted, and in some instances devastated by the effects of plagiarism among the congregation, who write or record their experiences or share testimonies about how they’ve been affected by the sin of plagiarism.
Regardless of the conversations, we cannot deny that the moral and ethical climate of the church today is at an all-time low. The news media and the web have made it increasingly difficult for anyone to hide their bad or even questionable behavior as it occurs. It has also provided a blindingly bright platform for the congregation to take center-stage amid increasing accusations – some valid and divisive, and others fictitious. It forces us to confront ourselves in the mirror and take a close look at who we view as leaders, truly considering whether or not our motives for ministry are centered upon God’s heart – reconciliation; or an increased man-made focus in hot pursuit of prestige, entitlement and ease in a celebrity driven man-made-ministry environment.
While many scholars and theologians will debate the ethics and morals of plagiarism from an intellectual and reasoning perspective, the question for the Holy Spirit-filled believer remains here: “Where is the minister’s earnest pursuit of God? Does that leader have a supernatural understanding of Holy Spirit; and where is the ear-to-hear what the Spirit of the Lord is speaking to their heart?”
“We know that God often gives many people the same revelation. This truth is not at issue. What we are exposing and examining is the issue of plagiarism – the calculated, deliberate theft of the work of others.”
This distinction is paramount. We do not want anyone who reads this book to fall into confusion concerning what we are addressing. This issue isn’t about what’s right or wrong; but about what God considers to be good and what he identifies as evil. It is pulling US out of the equation and leaning totally on God’s Word in understanding how this topic unfolds. When Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, is our guide there are things we cannot or will not do because Christ has truly risen as LORD in our lives. We know that to love God is to feed his sheep. We know that to love God is to obey all that He commands.
In times when we do commit acts of sin, we also know that Holy Spirit will rise up inside us, IMMEDIATELY convict us of sin and convince us what the perfect will of God is in whatever situation we face. We know this: God chooses what He ALONE has defined as GOOD. We are left resisting the enemy of our souls, or as the old folks would say – putting the devil under our feet — until the temptation to sin flees under the power and authority of the Lord.
The issue of plagiarism is about lying and deception. It is rooted in manipulation and idolatry. It is about unauthorized vessels, those who did not receive the sermon or idea directly from God, but made a conscious and deliberate decision to steal it from those called and sent by Him to walk out that sermon or idea released from Him. While we can focus on the morals and ethics of the issue with our intellect; the search for truth begins in the realm of the Spirit – fully tied to our personal relationship with God.
This is what this book, The Sin of Spiritual Plagiarism: Unauthorized Vessels, discusses. It is about laying aside man-made reasoning that has turned this discussion into a subjective debate, and redirecting our attention to the Spirit realm – where our concerns are rooted in being good witnesses and stewards of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is identifying and boldly raising awareness to a prevalence of sin that is pouring its way through the assembly. Prayerfully, those reading this book will be challenged with two questions that I urge you to present before Holy Spirit: (1) Is your soul desperately seeking to be fully reconciled with God for his purposes alone? (2) Where is your love walk, as Christ defined it, with God and man?
You see, we have people among the congregation today who believe they can be “half-saved.” They think that all it takes is a Christ-confession to assure their entrance into the Kingdom. I firmly believe that to be present with God is to be fully reconciled with him! I have seen people use the excuse that “even the patriarchs were sinners and didn’t get it right.” I agree, but I also believe that their pursuit of God was such that they GREW from their place of failures in God’s presence into fully walking in purity, holiness and sanctification. I believe that WE had the privilege of watching that metamorphosis, that journey – as a place of encouragement in our pursuit of the spirit NOT as a license to willfully sin. When we declare that Jesus is savior we are also saying that HE ALONE is Lord. The climate making its way through the congregation today isn’t pushing this truth. Instead, people are left in a false illusion thinking that “I am okay just the way I am” in the midst of their sin.
Scribes and leaders in the congregation, I challenge you to read this book with the Matthew 28:18-20 commission and our call to be 2 Corinthians 5:16-25 ambassadors in your heart. Read these scriptures from the Complete Jewish Bible translation as it will bless you. I challenge you to view this issue from a God perspective versus that of man. Allow Holy Spirit to guide you. Not only do we need to know Jesus personally and be intimately acquainted with the written Word, but we also need to give Holy Spirit permission to be all God ordained him to be in our lives! For those reading this who are scribes in the Kingdom of Heaven, and who have studied or gleaned from the ministry of Voices of Christ over the years, consider it in context with the foundations of who we are as Scribes of the King.
Plagiarism isn’t a sin we can simply dismiss. While I could not locate any statistics on plagiarism among the congregation, I did locate stats on plagiarism concerning college and university students. In a report published by Turnitin, a leading technology-based plagiarism checker used by schools across the country, “students in the United States submitted over 33.5 million papers to Turnitin between June 2010 and June 2011. Nearly 128 million content matches were found between these pages and the Turnitin index on the web” (Turnitin: iParadigms LLC 2011). In other words, they found that many content matches that were plagiarized! In addition, the report states that, “We live in a digital culture where norms around copying, reuse and sharing are colliding with core principles of academic integrity”(Turnitin: iParadigms LLC 2011). Note that this is in the academic environment. Presently, there is no way to adequately track data with as much accuracy outside of this environment – like in our congregations or among every day members of the congregation including pastors and leaders. However, we might conclude that if the problem is at this magnitude in the academic community it is also likely that it is such in other environments as well – including the congregation.
It is my prayer that this book will bring conviction, healing, repentance, clarity and understanding to you in the realm of the spirit. We are way past playing games with the matters of the Spirit, the matters of the heart. We are beyond the place of embracing an itching-ear Gospel. We are in the time and season of the remnant in which God is making clear distinctions between the wheat and the tare, the sheep and the goat. While this book is specifically written for scribal ministers, it can be applied broadly to the issue of spiritual plagiarism.
If you are a scribe whom Father is leading to dig into this study, I want to encourage you to check out The Scribal Anointing® book series which provides a biblical foundation for our identity as prophetic scribes, outlines our Father’s plans and purposes for us, and most importantly – presses the weight of our ministries upon us fully and completely.
I promise that as you read through this series, combined with this book, your life as a prophetic scribe (a believer in general) will never be the same. God pours his Spirit out upon these teachings as they are released so that we might walk as Master’s in the midst of our call.
As I close, I pray that the peace and blessings of the Lord and the Matthew 13:52 Scribal Anointing overtake you in this season. (Excerpt taken from The Sin of Spiritual Plagiarism: Unauthorized Vessels)
Book is available for purchase online at My Scribal Store or Amazon.com.
