It’s the end of the semester on college campuses, and once again I’m stunned at what students will try to turn in as their work. My husband has had to fail several of his students for plagiarizing. He hates doing this. But people must think professors have never heard of the internet.

It’s not just the teenagers (who of course should know better) but it’s the adults, who take classes in between busy family and work schedules. So here’s where it really stinks to have to give them a zero. But come on! If you cut and paste off Wikipedia and pass it off as your own work, you don’t deserve a college diploma. Period.

Anyway, my 6-year-old daughter has been overhearing our discussions about plagiarism, and she’s taken it all to heart. Last night, she was carrying her Bible and a little notebook around.

“What ‘cha writing?” I asked her.

“I’m writing a book about God,” she said.

“Can I read it?”

“OK, you can look at it. But I promise I didn’t copy it. I wrote it in my own words.”

Sure enough, when I began to read it, she was writing out the creation story from the book of Genesis in her own words.

After I read a couple of pages, I looked up at her and said, “This is wonderful. But you know, it’s OK if you copy the Bible. God likes it when we copy His Words. You don’t have to worry about getting in trouble for copying the Bible.”

I explained to her how people used to copy the Bible by hand a long time ago before we had copy machines.

Then I took my own message to heart. It’s OK if you copy the Bible.

Is my life copying the Bible? Do my thoughts and attitudes represent those of Christ? Are my actions worthy of a Christ-follower?

For all of us, “It’s OK to copy the Bible.”