God’s Word Is Not Bound
Copyright & the Stewardship of Scripture
Can the Word of God be owned and restricted by man?
In the modern world, Scripture is often controlled by copyright. Bible translations, manuscript images, and critical texts are legally protected and treated as proprietary works. But can these systems be reconciled with the Bible’s own teaching about the nature of God’s Word?
God’s Word Is Not Bound examines the theology, history, and ethics of how Scripture is distributed and stewarded today. Drawing on biblical exegesis, church history, and sound reason, the contributors ask whether contemporary practices surrounding Bible publishing truly reflect faithful stewardship of God’s revelation.
This volume explores questions such as:
- Does Scripture forbid commercializing the Word of God?
- Are Bible translations fundamentally different from the original text?
- Who owns biblical manuscripts and digital reproductions?
- Does copyright actually protect Scripture from corruption?
- How did modern Bible publishing come to control access to Scripture?
Featuring essays and a formal debate on the morality of licensing Bible translations, this book invites readers to reconsider assumptions that many Christians have never examined.
If Scripture is truly a gift entrusted to the Church, how should it be shared with the world?
Some of the material in this volume was first delivered at Doreancon 2025, a conference hosted by Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church in Sunnyvale, California. Find out more about future dorean conferences at doreancon.org.
Contributors: Conley Owens, Andrew Case, Michael Coughlin, Jon Here, and Jonathan Melin.
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Get a printed copy
The book is available at the following online retailers for the minimum price they would allow:
If you would like a free printed copy, we’re happy to pay for the printing and shipping for you. This offer is open to anyone. If you need more than one copy, please contact us.
Print the book yourself
You can supply a printing service such as Lulu with the cover page and contents to print yourself, if you would like. It must be printed 6x9 inches, and we use paperback perfect bound, standard black/white, cream paper, matte cover.
Download PDFDownload coverTranslations and adaptations
If you’d like to translate or adapt the book in an editable format you can use this Word document.
If you plan to translate the whole book, please contact us so we can guide you in doing it in a way that will be easily publishable when complete.
Why we’re giving printed copies for free
One of the distinctions we explain in this book is that if teaching is given freely, then it’s ok to charge for paper and ink. In practice, this means releasing teaching from copyright and making it freely accessible online, but we don’t expect everyone to give away printed books for free, as we are doing here.
So why are we giving away printed copies? The reason for the biblical ethic against selling ministry is that it undermines the sincerity of ministry (2 Cor 2:17). While charging for physical copies is not necessarily insincere (as selling biblical teaching would be), it has the potential to suggest an ulterior financial motive.
We don’t want anything to cast doubt on the sincerity of the message we’re sharing. That’s why we don’t charge for printing or delivery—and we don’t ask for donations either. Again, we’re not saying everyone must do this; we wholeheartedly encourage financially supporting ministry. We’ve simply chosen this approach because of the nature of the topic we’re addressing.
While we can’t afford to do this at scale, we provide everything needed to print in bulk should someone wish to, at the lowest cost possible.
If you have any questions about this, please read the book, because it’s exactly the kind of thing it explores in depth—and it’s free!