Second Hand Sermons?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814765#Comment_814765

I would note that there are sermon outlines that are published specifically as preaching aids. I do believe they have some legitimate value for the novice preacher, especially someone who doesn't have formal training and is just beginning to get into proclaiming the word. They provide training wheels - and a bit of a security blanket - to help them structure a simple lesson that hangs together and makes sense. They should, if they're developing normally, fairly quickly outgrow the need for that kind of aid. If an experienced minister is still using sermon outlines as the basis for their own sermons it indicates, in my judgment, that there's either a problem with their development as a preacher or they're just phoning it in, so to speak, without putting in the effort the job deserves. (I'll admit that there may be unusual situations, such as being asked at 9:00 in the morning to give a lesson at 10:00, where even a more experienced minister might find this type of tool useful.) But for the young person offering up their first sermon, the person asked to give an occasional sermon when an experienced minister isn't available, or the individual considering a mid-life move from a secular job to the ministry, a sermon outline may give them the confidence and guidance they need to succeed.

Andy

My view is similar to that expressed above. I have a number of sermon collections, MacArthur, Piper, Keller, and the lost Driscoll collection. I tend to use these collections for devotional purposes, to understand a particular preacher's position on broader issues than those explored in their published monographs, and reading for pleasure.

I will also occasionally refer to a sermon collection in serious study. Typically this would involve older works, e.g. Jonathan Edwards, Calvin, etc. I will occasionally use a sermon collection to sense-check a particular point or approach in sermon preparation. I try and minimise this, however, as I don't want to fall into the temptation of repatterning my sermon after the last thing I had read. For that reason, if I do refer to another sermon collection, I will only do so in the late phase of preparation.

JT (alabama24)

Which makes me wonder, "What then should one think about Logos sermon collections?"

Augustine sent copies of his sermons to local pastors. I wonder what they did with them.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814805#Comment_814805

Ah yes, Piper training his professionals.

Some traditions speak to the amateurs ... a Bible or maybe key quotes ... 1st century stuff .... ok, maybe late 2nd.

But in defense of Piper and his professionals, churches do demand quality from their oxen treading out the grain.

DAL

Piper's opinion is his opinion. If you found a sermon outline that will preach and you give it your own personal touch (or not) and that helps bring someone to Christ, why not use it? A word of caution would be: don't get into the habit of using others's work ALL the time and when you do, every now and then, make sure you still add your own personal touch and work hard to make the outline and presentation better than the original (it can be done). I reworked a Piper sermon on Barnabas and it definitely served the purpose of encouraging a few members who needed the encouragement; and reworking the outline required work just like it requires work to build a sermon from scratch. My respects to Piper, but his opinion should not apply to everybody only to the lazy preachers who love to "wing it" in the pulpit using someone else's work irresponsibly.

My 2 cents

DAL

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814805#Comment_814805

It was a work which the Archbishop had long had in view. For there can be no doubt that he had sanctioned and encouraged the publication of the discourses called Postils which were collected and printed by Richard Taverner in 1540; perhaps he had even been a contributor to the volume. And it must have been by his persuasion that “the bishops, in the Convocation holden A.D. 1542, agreed to make certain homilies for stay of such errors as were then by ignorant preachers sparkled among the people.” That Convocation sat at intervals from January 20 to April 3 in that year, but did not meet again for business till February 16, 1543, when some homilies, not made by the bishops, but composed by certain dignitaries of the Lower House, were produced by the Prolocutor. Of these nothing further is recorded; but, although the project “took none effect then,” some of them may have been preserved, and turned to account by Cranmer in 1547. Be that as it may, he now tried to carry out the design in the manner then agreed upon, and called upon Gardiner, and probably upon other bishops, to furnish homilies accordingly; and, although Gardiner refused to be bound by an agreement made five years before, the Archbishop seems to have found Bonner more compliant, and was aided also by more willing coadjutors.
The book came forth with the following title: “Certain Sermons, or Homilies, appointed by the King’s Majesty to be declared and read by all Parsons, Vicars, or Curates every Sunday in their churches where they have cure.”

John Griffiths, “The Editor’s Preface,” in The Two Books of Homilies Appointed to Be Read in Churches, ed. John Griffiths (Oxford: Oxford at the University Press, 1859), vii–viii.

Mike Pettit

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814845#Comment_814845

A quote from the great Augustus Montague Toplady:

"I was buying some books in the spring of 1762, a month or two before I was ordained, from a very respectable London bookseller. After the business was over, he took me to the furthest end of his long shop, and said in a low voice, 'Sir, you will soon be ordained, and I suppose you have not laid in a very great stock of sermons. I can supply you with as many sets as you please, all original, very excellent ones, and for a trifle.' My answer was: 'I certainly shall never be a customer to you in that way; for I am of opinion that the man who cannot, or will not make his own sermons, is quite unfit to wear the gown. How could you think of my buying ready-made sermons? I would much sooner buy ready-made clothes." His answer shocked me. 'Nay, young gentleman, do not be surprised at my offering you ready-made sermons, for I assure you I have sold ready made sermons to many a bishop in my time!' My reply was 'My good sir, if you have any concern for the credit of the Church of England, never tell that news to anybody else forever.'"

Jack Caviness

he urges preachers not to use other's work

When I first entered the pastoral ministry, my pastor told me that many SBC pastors moved ever 2-1/2 years because that was the time it took to preach through all of Hershal Ford's Simple Sermons For… collections. [8-|] Hopefully, he was incorrect.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814945#Comment_814945

many fine, detailed responses. I do think the issue boils down: are you doing any work on your sermon at all, and are you saying outright, or implying, that what you are preaching is yours when it is not--which is related to how much work you have put into it (thought, study, reflection, application for your own life and congregation, etc).

I think it is helpful to think of a continuum--one where the one extreme is preaching Piper or Chrysostom word for word and saying it is yours, and the other end which is never looking at anybody's thinking, never reading a paper for illustrations, etc, and just making up stuff on your own. If you tend to align more with one side versus the other, perhaps you are out of balance and need to address why you are stuck there. Ie, if you rely a lot on others, what is the problem with your own study and thinking? Or if you only do your own thinking, why do you not allow for the input of others, many of whom may have been inspired (on some level) by God and have something to offer your own thinking.

Obviously the above doesn't cover all situations, but I offer it as a kind of rubric to evaluate tendencies and motive.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814945#Comment_814945

he urges preachers not to use other's work

When I first entered the pastoral ministry, my pastor told me that many SBC pastors moved ever 2-1/2 years because that was the time it took to preach through all of Hershal Ford's Simple Sermons For… collections. Hopefully, he was incorrect.

[:O][:D][:D]

Ted Weis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814761#Comment_814761

The idea is along the lines of taking milk from several cows, but making your own butter.

I love that statement! Also, I appreciate the fine erudite statements from everyone.

Nicholas Roland

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/814974#Comment_814974

So, may I throw an example out there for feedback? Years ago I heard a sermon on a passage in Mark that was very formative for me. When my church was preaching through Mark, it came time for me to preach that passage. I did my own exegetical work. I prayed over and wrestled with the text. In the end I couldn't get away from the basic outline and main idea that I had heard in that sermon earlier. I felt like that preacher got it. I could have moved further away, but it would have compromised what I felt even more convicted about after my exegetical work. So, I shaped my sermon from his basic outline and main ideas with my own fresh exegetical work and some illustrations while in the end still landing in the same way he did. When I got up to preach, I opened by acknowledging that I had heard this pastor preach this text and I learned most of what I would share from him and would follow his approach. Do you see this as honest and having pastoral integrity? I'm still young and new at this.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815364#Comment_815364

Do you see this as honest and having pastoral integrity? I'm still young and new at this.

Absolutely.

Dean Stow

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815365#Comment_815365

I am not trying to be obtuse. I don't have an axe to grind. I am truly looking for an answer.

This is something I have been struggling with for quite some time. I respect the concept of intellectual property and hope to write informative material someday. On the other hand (to quote Solomon) is there anything new under the sun?

To be honest, is not 90+% of what we can say about the scriptures something we have read or heard said before? Is that number be more like 99+%?

Clearly, if someone thinks sermon prep is memorizing another's work and presenting it as their own, this is wrong. But where does one draw the line? When a preacher or commentator describes the worship habits of the Caananites to establish background for an exposition out of Joshua, should they pepper their sermon with bibliographical asides? For an author, at what time does something become accepted knowledge and no longer need to be footnoted? If one has ten sources, does one pick a single source to note or does one list every source they have?

One concern I have is that I might use an illustration (crediting the source from which I heard it) only to to be naming the wrong source.

Once during a conversation at a traveling bible museum with a presenter I mentioned that I was interested because I had heard such and such from so and so and was informed "Yes, he got that from me." How embarrasing for the three of us (even though the third party wasn there).

Please forgive my ignorance as it has been a very long time since I have written a term paper and may have forgotten simple rules of thumb appropriate for this discussion.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815367#Comment_815367

If one has ten sources, does one pick a single source to note or does one list every source they have?

The short answer is: use the one that seems to you to be the original, if that can be told. Sometimes a phrase is attributed to several people and it is hard to tell. Pick one and cite the source and let history play itself out. In general if you cite the source, that is all you can do to back up your quote. You cannot possibly know the whole history of literary origins and transmission. Just have integrity with what you do know.

Rev. Wayne Paul Barrett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815372#Comment_815372

Maybe a good analogy is the production of music: Everybody has influences and, inevitably, echoes of those influences will show up in the music that an artist makes. It is good to acknowledge one's influences: Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Keller, Piper, etc. There is also the "fair use" doctrine, which at one time (and I may be wrong about this now) was considered 8 recognizable notes of a song; the pastoral equivalent is tricker, and a matter of integrity and conscience. Then there is "sampling" or "remixing" which either "quote" an original work directly or rework it, with acknowledgment to the original artist. If you use a "sample", acknowledge it (in the music world, this can be a costly error; e.g. the string sample from the song Bittersweet Symphony is from a Rolling Stones song; the Stones management did not permission for that sample to be use, so the band The Verge eventually forfeited all royalties for the song). Just remember that a sermon filled with "so-and-so said this, and this dude say that" gets exhausting for your listeners; it's taken me years of ordained ministry to accept that people really do want to hear what I (or you) have to say!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815373#Comment_815373

The Verge eventually forfeited all royalties for the song

wow, the same thing happened to the Verve! 😋

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815365#Comment_815365

Do you see this as honest and having pastoral integrity? I'm still young and new at this.

Absolutely.

I completely agree. You studied and learned, and then gave your congregation the best of what you'd found, giving appropriate credit where credit was due. No one could ask anything more of you.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815422#Comment_815422

Ok, Friedrich, it's time for a refresher on your thumbnail pic .... I forgot where it was?

Less (or more) seriously, this thread is fascinating. A sermon as intellectual property. And sure, even the 'Bible' ... God's very words .... as human intellectual property ... only to be bought and sold in North America (where the lost tribes sailed to).

Some pastors in some traditions believe it's the Holy Spirit in charge ... but of course the actual words being personally owned .... maybe some oxen treading royalties?

I wonder how far back this idea went? Just off the top of my head, a few centuries maybe?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815440#Comment_815440

Ok, Friedrich, it's time for a refresher on your thumbnail pic .... I forgot where it was?

The Go! Half-marathon, St Louis.

Less (or more) seriously, this thread is fascinating. A sermon as intellectual property. And sure, even the 'Bible' ... God's very words .... as human intellectual property ... only to be bought and sold in North America (where the lost tribes sailed to).

As Tupac once said: Only God can judge me! (psst--do you think he might?)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815440#Comment_815440

time for a refresher on your thumbnail pic

I have GOT to tell you . . . no joke . . . just until now, I somehow thought your avatar thing was a bottom up view of you rappeling down through some trees. Your question got me to examine yours. I guess it is a bird?

Robert M. Warren

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815422#Comment_815422

the same thing happened to the Verve!

And the irony of that case is that the old gospel song "This May Be The Last Time" (which preceded the Stones's song "The Last Time") sounds much more like the Stones' song than the Andrew Oldham instrumental, which was what the Verve actually copied/sampled.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815461#Comment_815461

the same thing happened to the Verve!

And the irony of that case is that the old gospel song "This May Be The Last Time" (which preceded the Stones's song "The Last Time") sounds much more like the Stones' song than the Andrew Oldham instrumental, which was what the Verve actually copied/sampled.

soo, the Stones are sampling church hymns? 😋

Whyndell Grizzard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815479#Comment_815479

Here's my view- if you as a Pastor are preaching and have prayed prior to starting that the Lord speak through you- which we understand to mean as in your study He has prepared you to deliver the message to HIS people- then to me you have lost all claim to the intellectual knowledge.

I use others ideas and material without any compunction to attribute every detail to some one else- while I do acknowledge "others have said, etc" in passing.

Teaching the Word or preaching the Word is intellectual property of the Lord only- no matter who you are, as long as it is the truth- which is getting harder to find nowadays.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815456#Comment_815456

I tried really hard, Friedrich, to rapel down in that avatar ... I just can't see it!

Yes, it's a bird (but not a plane). He's scanning tourist cars below our house for any unauthorized rabbits.

The scientists pose the question, as a hunter, why is he so obvious. My answer is that he's the aircraft carrier of the bird navy. Fear is the point.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815522#Comment_815522

My answer is that he's the aircraft carrier of the bird navy. Fear is the point.

which you, for one, can fully appreciate!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815522#Comment_815522

I tried really hard, Friedrich, to rapel down in that avatar ... I just can't see it!

lol, I think it's hilarious, because that is literally ALL I thought of for several years now. It's my old man eyes. can't see for nothin'. It's kinds like mis-learning lyrics.

"'cause I'm a full-blooded sinner..." (friend of mine's mangling of Foghat's "fool for the city . . .")

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815440#Comment_815440

... A sermon as intellectual property ...

I don't think about the question in terms of a formal right to intellectual property. The nature of the publishing industry does make that a consideration for published sermons (though even in that case I believe it's only copyright - the expression of the idea - that's protected, rather than other forms of intellectual property protection, such as patents or trade secrets, which would protect the underlying idea or technique). But I think of it in terms of common courtesy and respect. In other words, if the preacher I've benefited from in preparing my lesson were sitting in the back of the room listening, would he feel honored by my use of his material? If the answer is "yes," then I feel like I've used it appropriately.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815364#Comment_815364

Nicholas

When I start teaching a new group/congregation fairly early on I tell them that I am not here to preach something new -- I am here to rehearse and old old story and the way it has developed through the ages. If I start to tell them something new then I am am probably getting it wrong.

This means that plagiarism is my middle name pinching ideas, as I do, from the greatest teacher of all time, retelling his stories, remodelling his examples, mimicking, as far as I can, his style. Anybody else I pinch ideas from is somewhat secondary.

On the other hand I have no problem with starting teaching with 'I wish I could claim this sermon was my own work but the Lord gave to Joe Bloggs first and then pointed me in his direction.

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815679#Comment_815679

I used John Phillips outline on Enoch for Bible class this past Sunday. I added so much extra that I will be doing part two for next Sunday. I gave him credit and the brethren definitely loved the alliteration. I added some extra sub points of my own that were Alliterative also. Even John Phillips himself said that he used an outline that he found on his mothers Bible notes to elaborate his material on Psalm 23.

"But of all the ways we can divide this psalm, I like best the one I found in my mother’s open Bible, there beside her bed, the day after she died. Alongside this psalm she had written: “The secret of a happy life, a happy death, a happy eternity.” (Exploring Psalms 1-88).

If John Phillips and other renowned scholars can do it, why can't we. All we need to do is rework the outline and add our own personal touch, not forgetting to give credit where credit is due

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/815672#Comment_815672

EastTN, I've no quarrel with the concept ... once oxen get royalties for grain stomping, all's well. Just interesting.

I come from corporateland. If I quoted the CEO without attribution, he'd be thrilled, if only to get results. Ditto quoting the janitor ... everyone's on the team, and the issue is results.

I think the Jesus equiv was the idea, what goes in is not the criticality ... it's what comes out.