A couple of months ago I got in trouble (I talked about it in a previous blog); I wrote a 10 page Greek exegesis term report. I was cornered by my professor because, though I had a page full of footnotes, endnotes and references-there was a sentence in my paper that I did NOT reference. It was a sentence talking about the texture of the original masoretic text in scripture; I could have ONLY wrote that sentence had I traveled to the Holy Land and observed that particular text/papyrus myself. It is what he pointed out in the handbook as, you guessed it, PLAGIARISM. I was speechless and did NOT have a defense. It was accidental on my part and he saw my sincerity, I suppose. Plagiarism is defined as claiming, or implying, authorship for work and applying it to our own without giving CREDIT to the original author and his work....
Wow!!! How often have we done this spiritually? How often have we been guilty of spiritual plagiarism?
* How many times have we prided ourselves in something without giving GOD credit?
* How often have we boasted about our jobs, finances, families, and deliverance without giving Him the credit?
* How often have we mistaken our paychecks as OUR money and neglected to give Him HIS portion and failed to give HIM credit?
That's Spiritual Plagiarism...!!!
Just a thought--but I think it'll preach!!!
2 comments:
Regretfully I must admit that I am guilty. But thankfully I have grown to doing this less and less. When I realize what I have done I ask God's forgiveness. I am so happy we serve a God of "another" chance. Thank you for this insight because it has made me aware of so many other areas we can commit "Spiritual Plagiarism" and for this It will give way to greater growth.
vlpsongbird
My name is Crista Briggs and I'm from Bowling Green, Kentucky. I am an assistant professor at the School of Nursing at Western Kentucky University. One of the responsibilities of being an educator in the academic setting is to write and publish in nursing journals. I'm constantly thinking of things to write about and submit. The other day I was driving down the road and just thinking... (I think a lot) ha ha. I was thinking about all the ways God is at work around us and that so often, we take credit for it ourselves. Since I am in the business of teaching, I encounter plagiarism a lot. So the thought came to my mind, "Spiritual Plagiarism....people do it every day." Then, I wondered if anyone had used this as a book title or article title so I typed it into Google. Your blog came up from:
Monday, November 12, 2007
....Spiritual Plagiarism...
Nothing else came up in my search as it related to this particular meaning of the term. Did you hear this from someone else or did you read it somewhere....or is this original? It was really interesting to hear your thoughts on this because it was exactly what I had been thinking about this week. Have you ever written further about this subject? Would you possibly like to work on writing an article with me? I've always wanted to submit something to the "Journal of Christian Nursing" but have never had the idea for what to write. I have some free time this summer (well, as much free time as you can have with a 1 and 2 year old). I was thinking about trying to work on something like this. Would you consider co-authoring with me about this topic? If you were to expand on what you have already written in the blog and then I could add the nursing piece, I think it would be great. A book seems like such a time-consuming venture and I've never even thought about doing that, but a journal article is much more manageable at this point.
Thanks for your time.
Crista Briggs, Ed.D., MSN, RN, CNE
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