Featured New President of the SBC

Using others sermon outlines is nothing new and has always been encouraged by men like Adrian Rogers, R.G.Lee, etc.

What is new is claiming to do so is stealing, of which I’m seeing that accusation thrown about all over the internet right now.

If the sermons we deliver are ours and we claim that no one else should be using them else we are stealing, that is fine just don’t also stand before your people on Sunday morning and say that you have brought them Gods message He gave you. We cannot both own it. It is either ours or Gods.

I have 123 sermon outlines on Sermon Central that get views from all over the world every week. If I have said anything at all that correctly represents God then anyone should use it if they feel so led and keep my name out of it.

Give God the glory and move on. I could never have done that unless God gave it to me and therefore it’s not mine to lay ownership over.

I do not support litton or grear or any of their ilk. But trumping up charges to get rid of them is out of bounds. We need to be as full of integrity as we are pushing for in sermon prep.

 

Some further thoughts on the Ed Litton sermon issue.

• This is news that is out there and cannot be ignored. Even Ed Litton has responded with that understanding.
• This is, at least to some degree, political. Many are responding pro or con in direct proportion to whether they were pro or con Ed Litton becoming President of the SBC.

Perhaps this can provide a good opportunity to reflect on how preachers use the material of other preachers (yes, even personal reflection). As mentioned above, some of the outrage is more about Litton’s presidency than actually about borrowing or plagiarizing sermon material. When I was a young preacher, I remember that it was common that many of the older and more experienced preachers compiled and printed their sermon outlines. They expected others to use this material as a resource, and I do not remember any that were particularly concerned about getting credit. In fact, I think they took it as a compliment when others used their outlines. I do not relate this to encourage letting other preachers do our work – because that is too often what happens (i.e., an outline is picked out and used without the preacher making it his own). I do relate this to say that I do not think this is something new. Studying and copying another person’s exact wording to preach a sermon like that other preacher did, in my opinion, crosses a line, whether it is with or without that person’s permission.

Like RevMitchell, I tell people if they have learned anything from something God and other Christians taught me, feel free to pass it on. I do not need any credit. There does seem to be a problem when we claim a sermon is from God and then we try to copyright it!

I have written lessons (primarily for our local church consumption) on several books of the Bible. I place footnotes in the books to credit material I have immediately used. Also, in them I acknowledge the fact that I have learned so much over my 40 years of ministry that there is no way I can remember who all to credit. I have included statements such as these below to stress that fact.

Now those are in print. Simple fact, we are not going to have footnotes in sermons like we have in written material. “I heard a story about” should be good enough, shouldn’t it, without going into detail as to its origin? Telling someone else’s story as if it were our own blatantly crosses the line. Many years ago now, in my tent-making employment, I attended an opening ceremony with a motivational speaker who was a university professor and “expert” in communication (he was a great speaker). He opened with an extremely touching fishing story about him and his father. Later, I learned that the story was not true (at least it was not his story), and that this was apparently standard procedure. I lost much respect for him.

Above all, we should stick with 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word.”

 

Not really to my point. However, I must admit I might have mixed feelings about a pastor who converted members in a liberal church by quoting large passages from Paul while pretending the words were his own. But what would be their reaction when they finally realized they had been "duped" into believing the Bible?

 

A careful and consistent reading of Paul shows that he recognized that Jesus has overturned the traditional patriarchy in the present and coming Kingdom of God.

E. Earle Ellis did some fine work in this area, much of it summed up in the chapter entitled, "Paul at the Eschatological Woman" found in his book, Pauline Theology: Ministry and Society. It is well worth your time and attention. The main criticism on that chapter that I have seen in reviews was that Ellis spend all his time teasing out what the scripture said and not directly dealing with contemporary issues. And for what it's worth, Ellis was a good friend of Paige and Dorothy Patterson and served and taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at the pleasure of President Patterson.

Nope.

 

Litton doesn’t even look up when he preaches. Everything he says is a copy of someone else. He does nothing to prepare other than look over what someone else has prepared for him. It’s shameful.

And most saying it’s no big deal are probably doing the same thing.

 

What litton is doing is wrong but not because of this so called plagiarism.

 

Well, don't join his church.

 

Mai your okay with his “sermon borrowing” then?

 

I’m guessing your okay with copying someone else’s work also?

 

He already said he was. He has made his sermons available for others to examine and use in their ministry.

 

I guarantee you that no pastor preaches a truly original sermon unless it is heresy. You are the product of your mentors. You sit under and train under someone long enough, their material is so engrained in you that you don't have a clue if it's your thought or theirs.

No, I don't want a pastor to straight study, learn, and re-preach someone else's work. There are commonalities and overlaps that are OK.

 

Back in the early 1990s my local assembly was embroiled in scandal. The fruit of the scandal was at least a few broken families and a broken assembly, a major amount of carnage. It took 10 years for the church to recover and even then today, over 25 years later it isn't fully recovered. We moved to another state but still have ties there. One of the elements of the total scandal package, perhaps the least destructive aspect was that the senior pastor was using other pastors sermons presenting them as his own.

If a pastor tells us he is using material from another I have no problem but to pass it off as his own, to say Jesus has laid this massage on his heart when it was written by another pastor or staff I think is not right. True we get all of our research from another and we of course use others materials but to wholesale take is another thing.

 

I know of many SBC preachers, and IFB preachers for that matter, who use other preacher's sermons. It's been a common practice for years from what I can tell. I know that an evangelist we had visit the church I grew up in, Dr. James Zaspell was his name, preached a sermon that had been preached years earlier by Dr. Glen Schunk. It didn't seem to bother anyone, and Dr. Schunk seemed to know that this was going on. Personally, I don't think I'd preach a sermon done by someone else. I like to prepare my own under the leadership of the Holy Ghost. I have to say that there seems to be something lacking when people do this, but it's not something many are saying anything about.

 

The NC indeed made all of the save equals in spiritual blessings, but still has in effect God ordained pattern of male headship and leadership,, as NO passages teach otherwise!

 

I certainly hope anyone who stands before God's people to preach has studied the scripture carefully for themselves and done their own research.

In the past, in my early days of preaching, I would sometimes take the outline/skeleton of someone else's well-organized expository sermon and use it to organize my own research. I almost always found that by the time I had put all the meat on the bones, I ended up moderately reorganizing the skeleton, often breaking things down a bit differently. By the time I was done, it borne little semblance to the published sermon and it was truly my own work.

I understand the pressure of difficult weeks of ministry, the sudden need to fill the pulpit for someone who is ill, or an unexpected funeral message that has to be delivered without much notice. It can be tempting to lift someone else's sermon wholesale for that work when there is little time to prepare. However, if one has been faithful in private study and teaching/preaching preparation, you will find that you will have the grace of the Spirit to put together an appropriate sermon in a few minutes -- or even extemporaneously -- if needed.

I have experienced this dozens of times.

 

I have no idea what you are saying here, or what North Carolina has to do with it.

Well I guess I should toss out anything I learned from the world-renowned Pauline scholar, Earle Ellis, my own study of the matter, and every conviction and insight from the Holy Spirit because you have declared that we are all wrong.

You are obviously the Baptist Pope. I look forward to your other proclamations.

 

Give to me just ONE NT passage that states that females can now be elders and pastors in the NT church!

 

Give me one passage that reads, "males can now be elders and pastors in the NT church."

NOTE: It needs to say almost exactly that, otherwise you are interpreting.

 

ONLY references made to spiritual headship in local churches are all men!