A good definition of the word plagiarism is, “To take another’s writings and ideas and pass them off for your own.” Most certainly, all of us have assimilated a wealth of material from others in our lifetime. But this knowledge is now an unconscious part of us. It is when we are consciously aware of taking another’s writings and ideas, taking the credit for it ourselves, that we become frauds; or to put it more bluntly, literary thieves. I’m sure Ralph Waldo Emerson had a tongue-in-cheek when he wrote, “All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”
This world knows full well that its judicial laws (Deuteronomy), plots for movies and books (the hero on the white horse), along with its quaint sayings, (“the patience of Job”), have been stolen from God’s Word. Why will they not own up to this fact? Simple, then they would have to recognize that everything else in this life was received from their Creator. As John said, “A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven.”
We Christians are also sometimes guilty of plagiarizing God. That is, taking credit for something that was first His idea. We pass it off as if it originally came from us (Eccl.1:9). We have a problem admitting, “It is God which worketh in [us] both to will, and to do of his good pleasure.” Or as Paul puts it in another place, “What hast thou that thou didist not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”
God uses those He can trust with His Glory. (A.W. Tozer)
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