Stephan writes in to ask, "Pastor John, how do you feel about pastors who use ghostwriters to produce sermons, blogs, books, or other written content from their ministry in their name?" I don't like it. In fact, I'm against it. I think it's wrong, Tony. But let me define what I mean, lest--they mean something I don't mean.

I don't want to accuse inappropriately. 99% of readers believe that a byline, my name under a book title, means I wrote it. Either I spoke it, like Spurgeon, and someone wrote it down, or I took a pen or a computer and I wrote it. That's what they assume, and therefore, it doesn't matter whether two publishers agree that's not what it means, or an author and an editor, "Well, we don't think that's what it means." Well, it is what it means, and you can't play fast and loose with people's interpretations that way.

That's what a byline means, and I hope it stays that way. And therefore, I think to put your name on a book you didn't write is a lie, and the people would be shocked if someone got the idea that, "This is just your ideas." Like this person took a one-page set of ideas that they got from your sermons, they turned it into a book, and you put your name on the book.

That's a lie. And God said, "Thou shalt not lie." God said, "Love the truth." We're pastors. We are people who serve the truth. Our standards for truth should be higher than anybody's standards for truth, not lower than anybody's standards. Now, I believe in editors, big time. David Mathis at DG is called Senior Editor.

I sent off to him a book yesterday, or was it the day before yesterday, and I said, "Go at it, David. Help me avoid error. Help me not say things stupid. Help me get my grammar right." So he's going to send this back to me, and there'll be some blue, you know, highlighting in it.

And if that editing process reaches a point where this is anywhere near substantially David's work, his name is going on it. So I put John Piper with David Mathis. Let me give you another example. A lot of guys do this, don't do this, and I think they should. People write letters for them.

People write letters for presidents of schools and presidents of organizations. He just signs them and sends them out. I just think that's a lie. If Josh Edder, who's one of our directors at Desiring God, wants me to write a letter to ask our listeners to support, if he sends me the substance of the letter and it's written and I like it, and I tweak a sentence here and a sentence there, I say to Josh, "I'm not going to put my name on this without your name, period.

Your name's going on there. You wrote this and I tweaked it. But if he sends me an email that's got five bullet points, please include these things in what you say, this statistic and that deadline and this condition of our budget and whatever, and I take those five things and I write it, I'll put my name on it." So I realized that we get help in what we do, and I think, frankly, we should be way more than eager to give credit where credit is due.

So what I already wrote the forward to my book, I mean, the word to the reader, and I put in it, "Thank you, David Mathis, for this and that," because he's already done work in helping me assemble the pieces that went into that book. So my answer, Tony, to all the fears of putting somebody else's name on your book with you is that God will honor that.

Publishers don't like it. They don't want two names on a book. Well, tell them you're going to be honest and you wrote this with so-and-so, and then God himself will honor that truthfulness. - Yeah, and so for those who are not aware, apparently, from what I gather, this is a pretty significant problem in the publishing world.

- Evidently. I mean, I don't know them, but I hear that that's the case. And in fact, there was a scandal some years ago where, I won't name any names, but a name of a well-known person who has become a leader in the homosexual movement was found to be a ghost writer who actually wrote the books for three or four very well-known Christians.

And when I heard that, my heart just sank. It really sank. My estimation of those men's integrity sank several notches. And, you know, while I'm talking, Tony, one other thing comes to my mind. I believe that a book or an essay in a book is a craft. It's an art.

When people appreciate writing, they're not appreciating just a nugget of an idea that have incidental words around it. That's not what's happening. If this book is well-written, people are enjoying the craft of writing. And who's getting the credit for the craft? The guy who did not produce the craft.

And that's just wrong. It's wrong for people to be sitting there saying, "This is really good. This is effective. I'm pleased with this. I'm enjoying this." And they're thanking God for Pastor So-and-So, and he didn't have anything to do with that craft. That's just wrong. Yeah, thank you for that, Pastor John.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. At DesiringGod.org, you'll find thousands of other free books and articles, sermons, and other resources written by John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪