Should We Use Someone Else's Sermon? by Scott M. Gibson

Author:Scott M. Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Array
Publisher: Zondervan

Give Credit

“Few congregations will think less of a minister who frankly states that the outline of a sermon was adapted from Wesley, or one of the major points from Spurgeon,” said Webb Garrison in 1952. “Failure to make such acknowledgement is a way of claiming complete originality. And when a supposedly original sermon is found in a book, the minister does indeed descend in the estimation of his people.”40

What was true in the 1950s is true today. Haddon Robinson observes,

When we make someone else’s ideas our own, the line between what is ‘original’ (nothing is truly original) and what is plagiarized is difficult to discern. But clearly if we take most of our material for a sermon from another preacher, then it is a matter of honesty and integrity that we give credit. . . . When we use someone else’s sermon outline, one way we can easily give credit is “I came across an approach to a sermon by so-and-so, and I want to share it with you.”41

Eugene L. Lowry agrees, “When the preacher has borrowed the gist of the text’s meaning or a decisive sermonic turn from another’s work, it is easy to note this in the bulletin: ‘I am indebted to my colleague the Rev. Neighbor for this helpful insight regarding today’s sermonic theme’; or ‘Thanks goes to Dr. Homiletician for clarifying the gospel lesson for today.’ Alternately, the preacher might acknowledge another’s assistance just before the reading of the biblical text, or at some other time in the service prior to the sermon.”42

Oral footnoting can sound clunky. Am I required to say, “Brothers and sisters, this next thought comes from Richard Pervo, who in a 1997 article published in the Journal of Biblical Literature writes”? I agree with Mike Graves in saying, “No, thanks!”43

Baptist preacher John Broadus advises, “Avoid a parade of honesty about acknowledging.”44 Preachers would agree with Jamie Buckingham when he states, “Most speakers hate to break the flow in the middle of a message. It’s much easier to keep going than to confuse the hearer with a score of footnotes plugged into the actual text. . . . But courtesy calls for gratefulness — as long as it can be given without distraction.”45

If a preacher shaped the sermon along the lines of someone else, he can give credit in the bulletin instead of a verbal acknowledgment, especially if an outline or additional material for the sermon is published regularly.

There are always nagging questions when preachers prepare sermons. “I came up with this insight into the text on my own, but then I read the same thing later in Stott. Should I give him credit?” You probably don’t have to, but citing Stott would certainly bolster your argument, showing that you think the same on this matter as a leading theologian.

Suppose your big idea is worded the same as, say, a sentence you read in one of Kent Hughes’s books. Do you say where you got it from? Again, it’s not going to clog

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