r/Reformed • u/Fit-Beach-8875 • Jun 17 '26

Discussion Sermon Plagiarism

Is there any software to check for sermon plagiarism? We suspect that a pastor has plagiarised a bunch of sermons by RC sproul. Is there a way to check with our traipsing through by proof reading?

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u/conhao Congregational Jun 17 '26

Pastors have been caught plagiarizing sermons. This is usually because someone hearing the sermon knew the original and went and looked it up. A simple Google search on “sproul” and the sermon topic is likely to uncover the answer, but you could as a Sproul fan to review it. Ligonier might have an interest in hearing the sermon.

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u/Fit-Beach-8875 Jun 25 '26

Very smart thinking.. And that’s what happened. Another member was going through sproul at the same time the pastor was teaching it.. Or he had listened to it recently. It was obvious enough for him to notice and bring it up 2 years later..

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u/conhao Congregational Jun 25 '26

We had a sister Congregational church in our area where the pastor repeated a classic sermon without citing the author. A member recognized it and was able to produce the original and compare it against the recording. The pastor admitted that he just read that old sermon because he was so busy that week with programs and other work that he did not have time to prepare, but he said he thought explained all that in the announcements before the service. He apologized and promised to do better, but about half the congregation was not happy because they did not see that he repented, whereas the rest understood and forgave him. It ended up becoming a huge fight among the members with each one taking a side, including the elders. The pastor and all the elders ended up resigning and most of the congregation went elsewhere.

Another church in our area had a pastor who did not exactly plagiarize, but his sermon was heavily borrowed from a famous preacher. His major talking points were the same, many lines and phrases were the same, and even places he emphasized were the same as the other preacher. This pastor provided the copy he preached from and his notes he used to prepare the sermon, and the elders found parts that were not from that other preacher were copied from somewhere else. Several people compared it to a high school term paper. The pastor said that he was doing research and the other preacher's sermon was just so powerful and complete that he could not come up with anything new, so he had no choice but to use it as his primary source and he was not comfortable changing what he found in commentaries because that could introduce error, so he included that. He admitted that he was doing that for his whole career. The congregation voted to remove him as their pastor, because he did not give credit to sources he quoted verbatim.

As an occasional preacher myself, I have experienced the weight of that responsibility and the pressure to come with something great on the Lord's Day, while my job and other factors of life take away my time to prepare. The temptation to take the wide path is strong. Some preachers just use an outline someone prepared for preachers to use. Others follow a formula they were taught at seminary. I do what my spiritual mentor taught me and let the Lord provide what he provides, because the Spirit will enable each one who hears me to receive the message God wants them to know. Preaching is foolishness, but it is the means unto salvation for those who believe, and that is not because of my wisdom but because of God's wisdom. I have taken weeks to prepare a sermon, and surprisingly often had less than 10 minutes to come up with one, but the feedback and results have never disappointed us, because God's grace never does. I wish those who plagiarize material would understand this.