Plagiarism and the truth

Sometimes I want to write a book, and sometimes I cannot even wrap my mind around how hard it would be, if I didn't write pure fiction.

I can't figure out how, at age 52, I could keep from plagiarizing by accident.  If I read something in, for instance, a John Piper book, ten years ago, and I internalized it, what if I don't remember that I read it there?  What if the things I learned, over time, simply became my way of thinking, and I don't go through the exercise of thinking back through where every thought might have had its seeds of origin, once I get thinking?  Or what if I remember that I read something somewhere, a long time ago, but I have no idea where it was that I read it?  What about that?  Am I morally obligated to go searching until I rediscover my source?  Is there a point at which knowledge becomes one's own, rather than the property of the person who originally taught it to you?

Here's something else.  I sometimes find that when I'm studying the Bible, I have some thoughts, and then I start to notice things--in a sermon, on the radio, in a conversation or an internet article--and they correspond to what I've been thinking.  I've always taken that as a sign of encouragement, an indication that I am on the right track, and others also see what I see.  If we are all finding the same truth, then it is likely that we are on the right path together.  I've always taken this as encouragement, but when I think of actually trying to write something, I get all frightened.  What if I write the same thing somebody else writes (or has already written), and I get accused of plagiarism?

(I don't worry too much about what happens here on this blog, because it is casual, and unofficial, and entirely free from monetary gain.)

I recently watched a documentary on Amazon Prime called, "The God who Speaks."  It was really, really good.  I resonated with it.

It dovetailed with some points I have written about in these blog posts:

Thankful for the Bible
Groaning for Home
Sin, the Promise, the Law and the Word of God

I hope this only means that we all love Jesus and are led in our hearts and minds by His Holy Spirit to ponder on and discover the precious truth.

God wouldn't want us to copyright His truth, would He? 
Doesn't He want His truth to be shared freely? 
Doesn't He want His ministers to teach with humility,
being more concerned that truth is dispersed to those locked in darkness
than whether they themselves receive due credit for their discoveries?

If it's new, it probably isn't true, and if it's true, it probably isn't new.  So anything true is by nature recycled.  Maybe we don't need any more books.