Christianity Needs To Lose It's Copyright

Today it is a classic, but it was not always so. Frank Capra's movie, It's A Wonderful Life, almost sunk his career. When the film was first released in 1946 it needed to make $6.8 million to be profitable. it barely exceeded $3.8 million. It was nominated for several awards, but won none. That, by anyone's standard, if a flop. So, how is it that we all know the line, "every time a bell rings, and angel gets its wings"?

Well, because of a clerical error, the film's copyright expired in 1974. That made it public domain, and a free movie for TV networks to show at Christmas. So, what was once a flop is now a classic. And the movie has been named the greatest feel-good movie of all time.

There were only 120 founding members of the church, the 120 disciples in the upper room. Yet, within 70 years the number had grown to around 1 million. How did that happen? It didn't happen because Christianity remained a Jewish religion. It happened because Jesus removed its copyright.

Paul put it this way, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God's power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it God's righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith." (Rom.1:1-17)

We need to lose the copyright on the gospel. It is not a Baptist gospel. It is not a Catholic gospel. It is not a Pentecostal gospel. It is not a Mormon gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, most of us get that, agreeing with the basic premise of that statement, but it needs to become more personal.

You see many, if not most, of us are very satisfied if our family is saved. We are happy that we have a church family and that our preacher preaches the gospel. So, we are not motivated to share the gospel with anyone else. We are happy for the preacher to do so, happy to give to missions offerings, and happy for a few zealous souls to go and preach the gospel. We are also quite happy that "all" of our friends are saved.  So, then we sit back and enjoy our copyright royalties.

If you have copyrighted the gospel personally, corporately, or denominationally, you are flirting with preaching, by your inaction and exclusivity, a gospel which is no gospel at all.

Let's lose the copyright this Christmas and watch the gospel explode again.