The ethics surrounding pulpit plagiarism, then, are not simple, but a good bit of clarity is achieved, I think, when we keep two factors in focus. The first is truthfulness. "Plagiarism," writes Richard A. Posner in The Little Book of Plagiarism, "is a species of intellectual fraud." Posner goes on to name the two key ingredients of fraud in every act of plagiarism: one, somebody copies something and then claims ("whether explicitly or implicitly, and whether deliberately or carelessly") that these words are his or her original composition; and two, this deception causes the readers (or hearers) of these words to act differently than they would if they possessed the truth...

Giving credit to others is not merely a matter of keeping our ethical noses clean; it is also a part of bearing witness to the gospel...

Only preachers who deliver their own sermons stand with one foot in the life of the people and one foot in the biblical text. No Internet preacher stands in this same place. No borrowed sermon, however fine, can answer the question that cries out from every congregation, "Is there a word today, a word for us, from the Lord?" This is not the same as saying that sermons must be fully original. All preachers borrow from others, and should. There is a difference between being a debtor and being a thief. All preachers stand on the shoulders of biblical scholars, theologians, and faithful witnesses from across the generations. We do not owe our congregations an original essay; we owe them a fresh act of interpretation.