“You know God has a sense of humor, just look at _____!”

“More has been written about Jesus in the last twenty years than in the previous nineteen centuries combined.”

Stephen ProtheroAmerican Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon

Library of Congress: 17,000 books

…only 1 about Jesus’ humor:The Humor of Christ – Elton Trueblood, 1964

Christ laughed, and … He expected others to laugh … a misguided piety has made us fear that acceptance of His

obvious wit and humor would somehow be mildly blasphemous or sacrilegious. Religion, we think, is serious business, and serious business is incompatible with banter.

Elton TruebloodThe Humor of Christ

There are numerous passages … which are incomprehensible when regarded as sober prose, but which are luminous once we become liberated from the gratuitous

assumption that Christ never joked.

Elton TruebloodThe Humor of Christ

[This is why some Christians] are theologically orthodox but comedically heretical.

Mark DriscollReligion Saves & Nine Other Misconceptions

There is a time for everything … a time to weep and a time to laugh.

Ecclesiastes 3:1a, 4a

If there is a single person within the pages of the Bible that we can consider to be a humorist, it is without a doubt Jesus … Jesus was a master of wordplay, irony and satire, often

with an element of humor intermixed.

Leland RykenDictionary of Biblical Imagery

Ustarts happy happy ending

potential tragedy

Comedy & derivatives: 200 times

Laugh & derivatives: 40 times

• Achan – Trouble• Careah – Baldy• Eglon – Fat Cow• Esau – Hairy• Harumaph – Flat Nose• Nabal – Fool• Noharis – Snorer• Parshandatha – Dung

Bible Names

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in

righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

[“Good work” includes] knowing when to laugh and when to make fun of others for a prophetic purpose that

is deadly serious.

Mark DriscollReligion Saves & Nine Other Misconceptions

The prophet Jeremiah attacked idolaters,Jesus attacked self-righteous Pharisees, Paul attacked

Judaizers, Irenaeus attacked Gnostics, and Luther attacked the papists.

Douglas WilsonA Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire & Trinitarian Skylarking

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk

and lay uncovered in his tent.

Genesis 9:20-21

The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet

man, staying among the tents.

Genesis 25:27

Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the eastern peoples. There he saw a well in the open

country, with three flocks of sheep lying near it because the flocks were watered from that well. The stone over the mouth

of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the

well’s mouth and water the sheep. Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well.

Genesis 29:1-3

While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherd. When Jacob saw

Rachel, daughter of Laban, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and

watered the sheep.

Genesis 29:9-10

When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for

Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”

Genesis 29:25

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before

the midwives arrive.”

Exodus 1:19

“They gave me the gold,and I threw it into the fire, and out comes this calf!”

Exodus 32:24b

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!”

they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

1 Kings 18:25-26

About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away

on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be awakened!”

1 Kings 18:27

It is better for a man to live on the roof of his house than inside with a contentious, nagging woman.

Proverbs 21:9also: Proverbs 25:24

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snoutis a beautiful woman without discretion.

Proverbs 11:22

Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without

knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

Job 38:1-3

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely

you know! … Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place? … Have you journeyed to the

springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? … … Tell me, if you know all this! … Surely you know, for you

were already born! You have lived so many years!”

Job 38:4-5, 12, 16, 18b, 21

You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

Matthew 23:24

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Matthew 7:3

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 19:24

• He called them a bag of snakes (Matthew 23:33)• He said their moms had slept with the Devil (John 8:44)• Jesus made fun of the way they prayed (Matthew 6:5)• Jesus made fun of the way they fasted (Matthew 6:16)• Jesus made fun of the way they tithed (Matthew 23:23)

Jesus and the Pharisees

To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance! We sang a dirge, and you did not cry!”

Luke 7:31-32

Paul spoke to the people and … kept on talking until midnight … seated in a window was a young man named

Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.

Acts 20:7-9

What does this mean for me?1. We serve a humorous God, who laughs and desires us to

laugh.2. Too many people take themselves too seriously and God

too lightly.3. Some things are a joke, and to treat them seriously would

be a sin, but turning them into a joke keeps them from being legitimized.

4. When all else fails, all you can do sometimes is laugh.

Even in laughter the heart may ache.

Proverbs 14:13

Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Nehemiah 8:10b

What does this mean for me?1. We serve a humorous God, who laughs and desires us to

laugh.2. Too many people take themselves too seriously and God

too lightly.3. Some things are a joke, and to treat them seriously would

be a sin, but turning them into a joke keeps them from being legitimized.

4. When all else fails, all you can do sometimes is laugh.5. Humor is a missiological ministry tool necessary for

successful evangelism in our culture.

Cautions Regarding Humor1. Don’t mock God.2. Don’t mock everyone.3. Don’t joke all the time.4. Don’t forget to laugh at yourself, often.5. Use humor with discernment.

Answer a fool according to his follyor he will be wise in his own eyes.

Proverbs 26:5

[When we separate humor from the Gospel], the results are disastrous because we rob ourselves of the lightness and freedom necessary to notice and then to adore God.

Doris DonnellyDivine Folly: Being Religious and the Exercise of Humor