Introduction to "God's Word Is Not Bound: Copyright & the Stewardship of Scripture"

Read the text.⁠⁠Get the free book.⁠As Paul sits in a Roman prison cell, he writes, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound in chains as a criminal. But God’s Word is not bound” (2 Tim 2:8-9). Even though he may be imprisoned, God’s Word cannot be. Put all the preachers in chains, but the message of Christ remains free. Unshackled.Little did Paul know that the schemes of the Enemy would one day shift from binding the hands and feet of Christians to binding the Word—with legal fetters. Evil emperors who cast saints into dungeons would be replaced centuries later by Christians who imprison the Word behind bars of jurisprudence. And no matter the stated reason for this imprisonment of Scripture, the outcome remains the same: the Word does not run freely.The Church can no longer declare with Paul, “God’s Word is not bound!” Instead, followers of Christ cower before copyright claims, subservient to man’s restrictions on what God himself authored. It may be God-breathed, but men have arrogated it, threatening anyone who might want to unbind it and let it fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. Preachers call it “God’s Word,” but mere humans insinuate that it is theirs with the phrase “all rights reserved.”In our modern Church, Paul might have said the opposite of what he wrote so long ago. Looking around at the Bible publishing landscape, he may have written, “Remember Jesus Christ, as I preached in my gospel, which I am free to proclaim. But God’s Word is bound in chains as a criminal.”