Q&A - The Stewardship of Scripture - Doreancon 2025

The Best Argument Against the Dorean Principle

All right. My question is, what do you think is the best argument to convince the jury from the school and find the swan?

I'll go ahead and start.

So I think the best argument for most people is just to appeal to emotional arguments and then avoid scripture. I think that is the best the best approach. If you really want to convince somebody otherwise just appeal to the emotion of, you know, and the kind of word on the street people will value what they didn't pay for and all that.

So I think that's it.

I think the best argument against the Dorian principle is to argue that it's just a individual Christian's conscience issue and a matter of wisdom. And then you open the door for one person to say, hey, that's great that that's how you want to do ministry.

But God does not require all ministry to be done in this fashion. And of course, I disagree with that. But I think I think that's the best way for people to try to argue against it. And I think to be able to answer that because we're Protestant and how much you know about Protestantism, I don't know.

Protestantism is largely founded on liberty of the conscience. And so we're telling people your conscience is bound by this word of God law. And if their response is we think you're laying down a law that scripture doesn't lay down, it's the burden of proof becomes on Dorian principle advocates to prove that, which is one of the reasons we have the conference and all the resources available so that the church can do that.

Well, good question, Blake.

The Strongest Texts and the Meaning of Right in 2 Thessalonians 3

So one of the ways that question can be asked is what is the most persuasive thing? And I think these are pretty good answers on that. Another way that question can be asked is what part are we, any of we, at least certain about?

I'd say the thing that Jonathan mentioned is that that one text from 2 Thessalonians is the one that I would like to look into the most. I related to the way Paul uses the word right in 1 Corinthians 9, which I am fairly confident about or I am confident about.

But in 2 Thessalonians 3, he says this. Now, we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not according to the tradition that you receive from us.

For you know how you want to imitate us because we were not idling, we were with you. Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with toil and labor, we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you.

It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. So he says, you know, we do have the right to receive, but we want to give you an example to imitate. I believe he's using the word right in the same way that he is in 1 Corinthians 9, but I haven't spent enough time with the text to really know if that's the best explanation for what is going on there.

I would say that's probably the biggest. Area of fault for me as I think about the text that I've spent a lot of time on, some of these have taken a lot of time to dwell on, to really understand more deeply.

And this is probably the one that I am most interested in spending more time on to see if that really is the best explanation that he's just using the word right the same way he is in 1 Corinthians 9 to refer to an authority of stewardship, not a permissive license.

Storytelling, Open Source, and the Church's Use of Resources

So building on the concept of the objection, like a lot of the objections are emotional in nature, I think there has been a general recognition that this room, we'll say, is over-representative or over-represented by software people.

So part of that might be because of your social circles, but I also wonder, are software engineers more inclined to accept the Dorian Principle initially on an emotional basis just based on how much we intuitively recognize, how much we benefit from open source?

And if so, is there something that we can learn from that or just in parallel help people understand how much they already benefit from initiatives like that that are already widespread? And if they can, if people can see perhaps that, like, you're already using a lot of free software, it actually builds a lot of your life that you don't even know about, then that could open up the mental faculties to considering other things.

I think you bring up a good point, and I think this is why it was notable that Colleen described Andrew as such a good storyteller, because storytelling does appeal to people on a different level. And I found in my personal life, I've been shocked by how many people I've been trying to explain the Dorian Principle to, and they just don't care.

But if I explain to those same people how copyright prevents missionaries from translating a good book to another language, they're really interested. And then that brings me into the topic. And so I do think there is a place for knowing your audience, Ken, and being able to adapt the way you maybe introduce people to the concept through different means.

Just to make a few more comments on that. There's social circle. That's one aspect of it. There's also the fact that this conference is in Silicon Valley, so that's likely another part of it. There is a personality.

Software engineers tend to be less emotionally based argumentation than perhaps others. Insert title and all joke here. And yes, I think the experience with open source is a significant thing. That certainly was a large part of my interest in this.

I saw the value of open source and the way that companies, when they made their software free, ended up benefiting from that. Not only did people benefit from that, but they benefited from that. And then seeing the way that the church was often very stingy with its resources, even some small things, wanting it to flourish, having arguments with people about how it could be done better, not getting anywhere, because it's my pragmatics against theirs, knowing that, or at least thinking at that time that I had, I couldn't, I could argue for this, but I couldn't really say that it had to be a certain way, because I didn't have anything from the Bible that said it did.

But then noticing more and more that the Bible does talk about this quite frequently, or at least talk about the distinction between, about reciprocity and collateral quite frequently, and that has implications for freedom.

I'll also add that.

Spiritual Discomfort, Righteous Anger, and Persecution

In my experience, people who really are deep thinking Christians, or not even so deep thinking, but just sincere, they have the Spirit of God in them, making them uncomfortable with the status quo, and they can't put their finger on why they don't feel very happy with how things are.

It's kind of like a low-level headache that's in the background that they just want to try to ignore, and then when we bring these truths to bear before them, they're like, that's exactly what I've been noticing, that's what I've been trying to say, that's what I've been trying to articulate.

And so in my experience with the channel so far, and talking to people, it's actually very common that people resonate very, very readily with this when they are a Bible-believing person submitting to Christ.

And so I'm more concerned just if they have the Spirit of God in them, I think the Spirit will already have created some of this discomfort that we're.

Offering a solution to. I had one friend who, as he watched the videos, he described himself as being convinced and then convinced, and then he started describing himself as growing angry, and he was explaining that as like a good thing, that is the stage that if what we're saying is true that people should be getting to it.

And I think it was specifically the video on Bible translation in other countries. I think that was episode three of the main selling Jesus videos. That one, he said, really made him angry. And I think that's what we should be looking to cultivate in people, you know, a righteous anger.

A righteous anger, not something that would stir up real discontentment with God or anything like that, but there needs to be a zeal about this, something's happening here that needs to be corrected.

When we look at the early church, especially, and even the church abroad, we see that they've survived grand persecution that we really can't imagine. Now, today we have, in a sense, more freedom and then less freedom, as we're seeing here at the Dorian Principle.

But I think we also have a perceived fragility in the modern church where we went through the same kind of persecution. We don't really believe we would have survived it in some ways, like on the whole.

So I'm wondering if you guys think that there's any connection between our application of the Dorian Principle and it actually strengthening the church against cultural waves.

Against cultural, against cultural. What?

Waves of culture.

Waves.

Are you talking about the fact that we aren't actually encountering that much persecution compared to what others have? And so this gets downplayed or what are you?

I'm asking if, since we don't seem to apply the Dorian Principle as well as maybe the early church even did, they had their own issue they dealt with, right? But they were also hand-copying the scriptures fervently and we are not even allowed to do that.

And I think we see a fragility in the modern church that I think may be related to this. Do you guys think there's.

Any relation between the two?

Yeah, Hebrews 12 says that you have not resisted the point of shedding blood. Yeah, certainly it's the case that we are fairly fragile people that are not ready for more significant fights. And we do tend to assume that the powers that be are doing the right thing.

I mentioned yesterday in the Q &A, there are some benefits to living in a post-COVID society that doesn't assume those things as much. I think that's a good place to be right now for movement like this.

I don't think this was part of your question. I just have asked for that clarification. But another issue that I could sense would be common, especially, you know, I play Tyndale videos of him getting burned at the stake and stuff like that.

Someone saying, you're making a comparison. You're suggesting that you're undergoing the same sort of persecution. Is that really a comparison? Hebrews 10, Hebrews talking a lot about persecution. Hebrews 10 says, but recall former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those who was treated.

Persecution, biblically speaking, is not just in experiencing the things ourselves. It is also being partners with those who are treated, being co-laborers, being fellow workers with those who are treated, whether they be in other eras or even when we are standing up for those who are really feeling it overseas.

So, yeah, I think there's a significant way we are being, that we are engaging in persecution when we are partnering with them. Even if others may say, hey, you're living a pretty cushy life. You get access to the Bible.

What are you complaining about? I know that wasn't necessarily your question, but it's something I feel that you need to explain too. I'll just add.

That anytime you encourage firmness and biblical conviction and obedience, that leads to firmness.

And courage in other areas of your Christian walk. Yeah, piggybacking off of what Andrew said, I'd ask you, what's worse, selling Jesus or denying Jesus? Peter denied Jesus. Judas sold him, right? So, there's some examples we have to think about what can happen.

And what I would argue is that you're implicitly denying Jesus when you sell Jesus because you're disobeying Jesus. And so, as we practice disobedience and promote disobedience, that leads to ever-increasing sin.

And as we promote righteousness, it leads to sanctification. And like Andrew, I think, was getting to is our fragility. If we're so easily able to just give into what's basically idolatry and the selling of Jesus, how long are we going to last when persecuted before we deny.

Him explicitly? Right. Another way of framing that, what's worse, denying Him or selling Him. Another thing that you could consider is what's worse, the rocky soil or the thorny soil. Thorny soil is the one that by the, taken away by riches.

The rocky soil is one that just falls away. When you look at Hebrews 6, and it talks about thorny soil again, when the rain often falls upon the ground and it grows up and thistles and thorns, it describes one who cannot be renewed again to repentance.

It's describing a final reprobation, a final judgment upon that one, which Jesus calls the, He calls this the unpardonable sin. Right. This is, yeah, it's a significant thing to be the thorny soil compared to the rocky soil.

Now, don't hear me as saying that anyone who makes a misstep in this era has committed the unpardonable sin. But as we compare those two things, denying Jesus, selling Jesus, yeah, there is something clearly far worse with that selling Jesus category.

Selling Public Domain Work and the Ethics of Ransoming

How would you guys respond to, if you put your work in the public domain, a Christian book or music, how would you respond if someone wants to take that work and sell it themselves? Is there a violation in that era?

Can you kind of speak more to that? Possibly people take advantage of the work you produce and put it in the public domain.

I think we have a biblical precedent for that where Paul says, you know, if by any means the gospel goes forward, then glory to God. And so it depends on what's your goal. Is your goal just to stick it to everyone else that, hey, you can't, you can't sell it and you can't sell it, but I'm giving it away freely.

Is that really your goal or is your goal to get it out there? And if it's going to get out there, it's going to get out there if somebody sells it and, well, you're giving it away. So if that helps promote it, get it in people's hands.

You know, we give away free Hebrew videos. And if someone were to start selling those on a paywalled site as a course, it wouldn't bother us at all because people already know where to get the free one.

So that site will quickly kind of fade into oblivion or else just more people will get access and more people will hear about it or whatever else. So, yeah, I mean,.

That's our goal. Our goal is to reach people. We've had people send us photos of the Dorian principle in a half-priced bookstore for, you know, like seven dollars, which is an infinite markup, if you know math.

And so, you know, these things can happen. And I think as long as your heart is not covetous and envious of the wicked, that's what you need to watch out for. What they're going to do, you know, it doesn't matter.

But if you start to think, oh, I should have sold it, well, then the problems with you is what I would say.

Well, based on your sermon, I mean, what are the ramifications to be that by committing to send the direction outside of orthodoxy?

By committing, yeah, if in your heart you have done what the thorny soil does, you would not be rightly giving glory to God, orthodoxy meaning right glorification. If by orthodoxy we mean just right doctrine, my point is that right doctrine can be attended with a heart that is the thorny soil.

Do you think in the future, like,.

Churches that are serious about this, would actually put this in their constitution, that we abide by this principle, and if you violate this principle a little bit,.

You can actually do something to church discipline? I think that would be nice. It was for a very long time. Simony statements were significant parts of church canon law that governed the church. They came out as part of creeds and councils.

Simony statements are not, it wouldn't be something new or novel if we were to start doing that again. So I think that that would be,.

That could be very helpful. Thank you.

Pastors, Moral Qualifications, and Historical Parallels in Bible Distribution

This question is about the nature of day long and false teachers being worked by people speaking of qualifications for pastors being primarily moral. And I'm wondering, do you think this is significant and why?

It is significant. Of course, he needs to be able to teach, but being able to teach is not sufficient to be a good pastor. It's all those other things. Just as you mentioned, you see that with Balaam, that he's able to teach.

He doesn't have all the other things, but sure, he's able to give the word of God, maybe even better than Moses can, you know, depending on how seriously you take those lessons. The things we see about pastors in Timothy and Titus, they let us know that in Titus, it says something about the elder not being one who would act under compulsion.

The idea there being that because he has to, because he is bound by some contract, right? He's been bought essentially. I think that is getting at the heart of this. I do mention that in the book.

Yeah. Qualifications for overseers. First Timothy must be free of the love of money. Deacons can't be greedy. And then, so to me, if somebody was in clear violation of the principle and it's been explained to them, I think you could rightly say they're unqualified.

I have a historical question primarily related to your talk yesterday. The history that you were sharing yesterday and then this morning is primarily English in nature. Are there parallels in the French, German, other language spheres?

Is that just outside of your research? Or were there any significant unique qualities to the English Crown's copyright and the British.

Foreign Bible Society's practices? That would be a great PhD for someone to do.

Because there's a lot of research still that needs to be done in those areas. Finding the sources. I also don't speak French. I don't read French. Maybe it's buried in some old documents, this kind of stuff.

But I would love to know more about this. I do suspect, from what I do know about that era, the 1800s, was that the British were basically the only people with a vision to distribute the Bible. That whole century was just basically driven by, the Bible distribution was driven by the British in other countries.

So even Spain, very close neighbor, there's a whole two-volume work written called The Bible in Spain about a representative of the British and Foreign Bible Society going around Spain and Portugal giving away Bibles or selling Bibles.

And everyone he talked to, they had no access to a Bible in any shape or form. It was basically impossible for anyone on the continent to get one. And so it seems to be that the British were the biggest visionaries in this area, both for translation.

I mean, they were going all, in the 1800s, this was like the heyday of, especially the Presbyterian mission, going to the Pacific Islands, going all over the world, doing amazing pioneer work in Bible translation.

And so they set a lot of these precedents. And I assume, I would assume that their philosophy of ministry, their philosophy of copyright would have filtered down to a lot of these other countries eventually.

But yeah, I would love to know more about some of their philosophies. And I did a whole series on the Bible in Arabic and the first Bible translation into Arabic. And that, like, it's typically not the thing that people want to talk about in these documentations and the reports is like the nitty-gritty licensing issues that they might have attached to these translations.

It's more of a celebration like, hey, the Bible's done and all of that stuff. And so a lot of it's just kind of sidelined in the documentation. But, you know, great question. Thank you.

I actually, well, if I can answer that also. I actually had a lightning talk that I was working on that I never quite finished and so didn't give on a similar story in Germany regarding Luther and his Bible.

Luther had a lot of trouble with people very hastily trying to print any of his works, including his Bible. And they did so very sloppily because they were really just trying to make a lot of money. In 1525, he published a letter basically talking about just how wrong and evil it was to do this.

In fact, he had had his, I don't know if it was his own home or what, but he had had manuscripts physically stolen from him, unfinished, so that they could go print them before he was even done his work.

And so he writes this document in 1525. In 1534, the Elector of Saxony, John Frederick, he gives, he gives him, or not Luther, but several printers the sole right to print Luther's work, to stomp out a lot of this.

Now, Luther, the whole time, he is only concerned, he makes this explicit, he's not concerned about the money. He's only concerned about the purity of the text. In 1939, he is offered a deal from a publisher where if he gives them the manuscript before everybody else gets copyrighted, it doesn't exist at this time.

As soon as it's published, it can be copied, but if he gives it to them first, they would give him what was the equivalent of two to three times more his yearly salary, and he turned this down because he did not want to sell the grace of God.

And then in 1539, Luther writes another letter complaining to the Elector about the Bible being printed in a sloppy way. Once again, you know, just pointing out that he cares about the purity of the text.

And then again, 1545 also. So Luther was part of what ended up leading to copyright in Germany because of similar things where licenses to printers to print ended up locking it down. At least it locked it down for those who were binding by the law.

It didn't lock it down for those who were, as I mentioned earlier, copying the Bible's outlaw. Definitely the outlaws copied the Bible. So yeah, there's some similar things in Germany. Just to speak to Germany as well, we have an.

Article on our website on the further reading, recommended reading, and it's about Germany. We link to this article. It's not done by a believer, but it's a comparison of copyright, the whole flourishing of literature and book printing and everything in Germany and England compared.

And so we actually have an experiment in history of what this would look like, the difference, the contrast. And so England introduced copyright earlier than Germany. And so we were able to see historically the differences between them of what happened.

And what happened was that book printing and reading and literature and everything declined severely after copyright in England. And Germany flourished. It was actually one of the most prolific times.

More people were literate than ever in reading in Germany. And so there was a stark contrast just in the human flourishing of knowledge and everything else between those two countries. And no copyright, obviously,.

Was the better way to go in that case. How can we help people with alternative options like co-library? I'm thinking, for example, maybe people are trying to make a translation of the Bible and people could contribute to that project.

Or maybe it's a translation through a different language. Or maybe there's some author that wants to write a book and wants to help with that. Yeah, I was just worried that, like I wanted to say, we've established like this is wrong.

Now how can we provide a better way of doing things? You know, help people make a living for people.

Cooperative Publishing, Donor Support, and Practical Next Steps

I'll just say the first thing I would love to see is the church, you know, Christians come together, create a publishing house like First Love Ministries, for example, and see more of these kinds of publishing houses that treat themselves as mission organizations.

So your authors are missionaries. They raise support. They're supported by donations. They write their book. People can give to them as they are blessed by their book. And they can give through that ministry organization, which is also the publishing house.

The publishing house takes care of the typesetting, takes care of the publishing, printing, putting it online, freely available, or selling it at cost or whatever. And so the author doesn't have to take on all of those burdens of freely giving their work.

And so it would be so refreshing to have more of those working together with authors and typesetters. They offer that expertise and all of that is funded through donations. It's totally,.

Totally realistic, but just no one wants to do it. Very practically, I would encourage you to just join various communities as they exist online for this, right? If you're on Facebook, join the Money Administry Group.

It's called Money Administry Dorian Discussions. If you can get on Discord, join the Dorian Principal Discord group, because there are a lot of people trying to do creative things. And if you're in that, that's where you will find out the thing that you could contribute to, because there are a lot of different projects.

It's kind of hard to.

Say which one would have the highest priority or anything. I'm curious, what are some perks you would have towards us for collaborating with others? Excuse me. So my personal experience.

That I shared yesterday was that really taking a good hard look at my own stewardship of my finances and resources so that I would free up as many more as I could to be able to give was one thing that I think all Christians can probably improve in anyway.

And then I think we to be in prayer. I think prayerlessness is a problem that Christianity faces at various times and maybe in various segments of it. So be in prayer. Ask God for direction. Tell him, I want to be used.

God, lead me providentially into those situations where I find the author that I'd like to support and ask people questions. You can come up to Conley, or you could come up to Andrew, and I guess you could ask me too.

I don't have a Dorian ministry, but I've got other ones. And you could ask them, hey, is there a way I could help financially? Donations are accepted. And so a lot of times it's just talking about it with other Christians, then we'll open those doors.

My encouragement, there's a number that could be pointed to, but it would just be that small things matter. In 3 John 8, it says, therefore, we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

Those who have studied 3 John often will realize how similar a note from 2 John was. In 2 John, it says, watch yourselves so that we may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. It goes on to you and says, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

There's talk about co-laboring with false teachers. It says even shaking their hand is doing something profoundly significant. So if shaking their hand, like as in a sense of affirming them, right, is such a bad thing that you want to want to take part in their wicked work, what does that mean for what 3 John says about being fellow workers for true teachers?

Many people feel that their two mites aren't really anything great, but they are great in God's eyes. So I would encourage you that small things really do matter in God's eyes.

My very simple practical advice would be to read Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Elkhorn once a year for the next five years. Would you repeat that? Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Elkhorn, A-L-C-O-R-N, and read it once a year for the next five years.

I still want to hear Calvin's second question if he comes up here.

So my question is practical application. I'm a pastor. I've become persuaded of the Doreen Principle. My other two elders are as well. I've got a deacon who's an evangelist for it. We try to raise the discussion amongst the associations that we have friendships in, things like that.

But I would just like to hear from you men, just very practically speaking, for Christians individually and churches. We believe this is the way ministry should be done, that it glorifies God. We want to see more churches embrace this.

We want to see Lord willing changes in the copyright, you know, all these different areas. What would be your guys' just like rubber, you know, boots on the ground? You should do this. You should talk this way.

I mean, like, take this whichever direction you want. But just for example, do you guys foresee this being more of a grassroots movement? Do you think there's value in trying to continue to make contact with some of these higher-end publishers, somewhere in between, you know, or even the copyright issue?

Obviously, there's serious problems, but what can we do? Does that make sense? Would you guys speak to that?

I think it's definitely both. I think that a lot of people who are in the high places won't necessarily care because it does threaten a lot of things about what they are doing often. So there's going to be less motivation to even consider it.

So oftentimes, that has to come from those underneath them that would hold them accountable. At the same time, there has been a lot of fruit that we've had from reaching out to those names. The most significant of those that I can think of is John Heer having reached out to the BSB because they had a relatively free license that they were using, but you still had to write in and get permission and wait for them to respond and or be able to use the BSB in the ways that you would like to.

He wrote in, made an argument for putting it in public domain, they put it in public domain. And that's a wonderful fruit from this movement. So both ends.

If I knew the answer to your question, we'd already done it. If there was a quick fix, right? So I think what the model that you would see is that we write books and articles, make YouTube videos, make a podcast on audio, preach about it, and tell people about it, and then confront it when you see a reason for confrontation, do that in love like you would any brother to brother contact.

And at some point, you're just trusting that God, the Holy Spirit, is leading this charge at the exact pace that he wants it to go. And so we just keep, I think we just keep spreading the word, just like we just, the same way we spread the gospel.

And I don't think there's a strategy necessarily. And I think Connelly had said that as well, that, you know, we always think like, well, if we could get Trump and Vance on board, then that's just never how things seem to work except with Constantine.

And that didn't work out so great either for a lot of Christians. So I think you just keep in within your spheres, try to keep pushing these things and push for personal holiness and be the kind of people that when somebody starts to get pricked in their spirit, as Andrew was describing, that you're the kind of person they'd want to ask about or ask the question to, right?

I think just keep doing what you've probably been doing with a lot of other doctrines that you care about.

That beautiful blue Bible that Connelly just published is definitely a great, nice, hefty thing to bonk somebody on the head with. But what I will say is, you know, my approach to this, my application of what you're asking was to start the Selling Jesus website and to provide a whole body of literature that will equip and bolster the whole movement so that people can reference that, grow in their understanding of it, and really be able to defend it well on all levels, on every angle.

You know, you've got the Abolished in Jesus Trade book. Now, I think people, you know, it was just basically like giving the munitions to everyone who needs it to go out there and win more people to this understanding.

And so that's what my hope is. My hope is that people will take that, they will learn, first of all, master the content, and then they have easy things to share with everyone, right? It's easy. If they don't like books, give them podcasts.

If they don't like a podcast, give them the videos. If they don't like the videos, give them the skits, the funny stuff. They don't like the serious stuff. So we try to serve everybody where they're at, and hopefully there's plenty there to, it's just a matter of us actually sharing it and getting people to engage.

The Stewardship Statement and a Low Bar for Christian Agreement

Yeah, just two quick things.

The video that you saw earlier, the 20-minute long one that talked about the statement and the need for it, share that and then encourage people to sign the statement. I think that, especially if we're talking about those who are in positions where this matters, I think we should start requiring these sorts of things if they're involved in work that touches the stewardship of.

Scripture. The reason I initiated this idea towards making the statement was because I just wanted to give people this really tangible, practical thing to start anybody on their journey towards understanding scripture this way, and also to set a really low bar around which all the church could gather, because we may not all agree about the Dorian principle, but I hope that more Christians would be really passionate about just, yeah, at least let's just make scripture free.

Even if we don't make Tim Keller's books free, let's at least make this. We thought that was a low bar that gave a practical action item for everyone to do. Like, oh, I'm depressed about the status quo.

What can I do? Oh, I can sign the statement and get other people to sign it. It's like, hey, I did something, you know, tangible. And then hopefully that will lead to conversations with churches and elders and organizations like, hey, have you signed the statement?

Oh, what's the statement? Oh, let me explain it to you. Let me share some more resources to help you understand it.