{"id":17545,"date":"2015-03-27T11:27:30","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T11:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/\/uk\/?p=17545"},"modified":"2015-03-27T11:27:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T11:27:30","slug":"humour-and-holiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.banneroftruth.org\/uk\/resources\/articles\/2015\/humour-and-holiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Humour and Holiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published as a ‘Letter from the Manse’ in the church magazine of Grace Baptist Church, Stockport, Cheshire (March 2015).<\/p>\n

I spent last week with seventeen other men. We came together for a ‘study week’ and we studied. Seven hours together each day around the conference table and personal assignments to be completed in the break times. We worked through Galatians, grappling with historical issues, exegetical problems, biblico-theological themes, questions of application. We wrote paraphrases of the sections, drew up sermon outlines, presented them with the help of the OHP. It was demanding, intense, purposeful, exhausting, and deeply serious. We were conscious that we were wrestling with God\u2019s Word, and the goal was that we should be better equipped to preach it to God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

And it was fun. We enjoyed it. Lots of laughter around the study table, as well as at meal-times and cryptic-crossword-times and late-night-cocoa times. We had among us a specialist in bad puns – and his contributions set off chains of puns around the room, getting worse as they continued. (I enjoyed the story someone told after the answer to a crossword clue had turned out to be ‘tern’ … It concerned a German who swapped his sausage for a seabird, and took a tern for the wurst). There was the usual north-and-south teasing; there were the hilarious stories of embarrassing personal disasters; there were the absurd flights-of-fancy; as the week went on, there were the practical jokes and the appropriate retributions.<\/p>\n

Humour is dangerous<\/h2>\n

The Bible warns us many times about the dangers of humour. Humour can become unseemly and crude: ‘Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving’ (Eph.<\/em> 5:4).<\/p>\n

Humour can spring from folly – a refusal to take life seriously: ‘For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools’ (Eccles.<\/em> 7:6).<\/p>\n

Humour can be blasphemous – the men who stood at the cross and mocked the Lord Jesus thought they were being funny. ‘He saved others, he cannot save himself!’ (Matt.<\/em> 27:42).<\/p>\n

Humour can be dangerous and irresponsible: ‘Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows and death, is the man who deceives his neighbour and says, “I am only joking!”‘ (Prov.<\/em> 26:19). (Remember the two \u2018pranksters\u2019 who rang up the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was staying?)<\/p>\n

Humour can be ill-timed and insensitive. Humour can be cruel and hurtful. Humour can be used to excuse wicked behaviour. Here\u2019s C. S. Lewis – or rather, here\u2019s his senior devil Screwtape explaining to his pupil how to destroy human souls – Screwtape\u2019s advice:<\/p>\n

Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is \u2018mean\u2019; if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows for having been scored off, he is no longer \u2018mean\u2019 but a comical fellow … Cruelty is shameful – unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous jokes do not help towards a man\u2019s damnation as much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, Screwtape goes on to say, there is a still more effective way in which humour can destroy souls:<\/p>\n

But flippancy is the best of all … Only a very clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people, the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No-one actually makes it, but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy (God), that I know …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you want to understand what Lewis is getting at, just listen for ten minutes to any Radio 4 ‘comedy’ show. What do you get? A stream of flippant comments about virtue, immorality, Christians, heaven, hell, angels, devils, the Bible. No-one ever actually says what\u2019s supposed to be funny about these things. But all the clever people talk as if they\u2019re obviously ridiculous.<\/p>\n

There are some subjects which we as Christians must never make jokes about. We cannot trivialise serious things – things that ought to make us tremble. I\u2019ve heard jokes from the lips of Christians – and yes, from preachers – about Adam\u2019s Fall – the act of wickedness from which all human sin has flowed. I\u2019ve heard jokes about the Flood – the greatest catastrophe yet to come upon the human race through human sin. I have heard jokes about Satan – my greatest enemy and God\u2019s. I have heard jokes about Judgement Day and hell. And I\u2019m leaving wondering, ‘do we really believe what the Bible says about these awful realities?’<\/p>\n

Humour: better banned?<\/h2>\n

So humour is dangerous. And yet, every study week we hold is full of laughter. And this year\u2019s was no exception. Should I feel guilty about that? Is humour inappropriate when we\u2019ve come together for such a serious purpose? Should men studying the Bible and training as preachers be laughing together? Doesn\u2019t it undermine the sanctity of what we\u2019re seeking to do and to be?<\/p>\n

Of course it\u2019s not just study week. At almost every meeting of the church I hear something that tickles my sense of humour. And if Christian friends join us in our home, it would seem strange if we never laughed together. Should I be alarmed by that? Are humour and holiness incompatible?<\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t think so. The Bible itself is laced with humour. Word-play, wit, satire, farce, are all there within the pages of Holy Scripture.<\/p>\n

The Bible writers loved puns, word-play, riddles. The story of Samson is full of puns and double entendres<\/em>. Of course most of them can\u2019t be translated into English. Take Samson\u2019s words in Judges 15:16:<\/p>\n

With the jawbone of donkey, heaps upon heaps,
\nWith the jawbone of a donkey I struck down a thousand men.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not very funny, until you realise that the Hebrew words for ‘donkey’ and for ‘heap’ are identical. ‘With the jawbone of a hamor<\/em>, I made … hamors<\/em> out of them!’ He obviously thought that he was being very amusing … and at least his pun was better than most of the ones we heard on study-week …<\/p>\n

Some Bible word-plays are very dark. Remember Joseph\u2019s interpretation of the butler\u2019s and the baker\u2019s dreams? First to the butler, he says, ‘In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head … he will restore you to your position!’ The baker hears what Joseph\u2019s said to his colleague and ‘seeing that the interpretation was favourable’ decides he wants Joseph to tell him his fate too. And Joseph does: ‘In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head … (wait for it!) – he\u2019ll lift it up right off you. And he\u2019ll hang your body on a pole …’ First Joseph uses the phrase ‘lift up your head’ to mean something very positive. And then he uses it again, leads on the baker – and us – to expect something equally positive, until – bang! – the punchline. Grim humour – but so effective in driving home the message of God\u2019s sovereignty. The same God who had ordained that the butler\u2019s head be lifted up in honour, had ordained that the baker\u2019s head was lifted up in disaster.<\/p>\n

Satire in the Bible<\/h2>\n

The OT prophets often used satire. Sometimes it can be very barbed. Remember Elijah\u2019s mocking of Baal\u2019s prophets and their ‘god’? <\/p>\n

Cry aloud, for he is a god! Either he\u2019s musing, or he\u2019s on the loo, or he\u2019s away on business – or maybe he\u2019s asleep and you need to wake him up!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or in the same vein, Isaiah\u2019s expos\u00e9 of the absurdity of those who worship idols:<\/p>\n

He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree … Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes half of it and warms himself, he lights a fire and bakes bread. And he makes a god and worships it; he turns it into an idol and worships it! Half of it he burns in the fire, eats meat over it, roasts the meat and is satisfied … And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down before it and worships it. He prays to it and says, \u2018save me, for you are my god!\u2019. (Isa.<\/em> 44:14-17).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jeremiah\u2019s picture of idol worship is even more cutting. The idol has to be fastened into place ‘with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. They cannot speak; they have to be carried everywhere – for they cannot walk!’ (Jer.<\/em> 10:5). What a picture! The great gods of the nations, shining with silver and gold, decked in royal robes, adored by the crowds, are just scarecrows stuck out in the field, putting up a fine show but incapable of doing anything!<\/p>\n

The Bible tells us that God laughs – at the hopelessness of human attempts to overthrow him (Psa.<\/em> 2:4). And there are times when God\u2019s spokesmen – the prophets – have to laugh with him. But their laughter doesn\u2019t make sin seem trivial or funny. Rather it shows up human sin as contemptible and inexcusable.<\/p>\n

The Bible faithfully records the absurd things that people do and say – and we laugh at them. My children laughed when we came in our family worship to Aaron\u2019s words in Exodus ch. 32: ‘they gave their gold to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’. But as they laughed at Aaron\u2019s absurd excuse, they were made to feel how absurd their own excuses so often are.<\/p>\n

Comic pictures, comic situations<\/h2>\n

The book of Proverbs is perhaps the funniest book in the Bible – full of witty observations and comic pictures:<\/p>\n

The sluggard says, \u2018there is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!’ As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish, but he\u2019s too tired to lift it back to his mouth! (26:13-14).<\/p>\n

Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears… (26:17).<\/p>\n

Like a gold ring in a pig\u2019s snout, is a beautiful woman without discretion (11:22).<\/p>\n

It is better to live in a corner of the roof than to share a house with a nagging wife (21:9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Any preacher who preaches on verses like these without making his congregation grin or giggle has failed to use them the way they\u2019re intended to be used. They\u2019re supposed to tickle the imagination. That was the writer\u2019s – and God\u2019s – intended way of challenging his hearers to serious thought and changed behaviour.<\/p>\n

What about the comic situations in the Bible? Baalam, the greatest prophet of his day, feared and respected across the East for the power of his words, finishes up in an argument with his donkey and comes off worst (Num.<\/em> 22:22-30). What a rebuke to the ‘wisdom’ of man, when a donkey shows itself wiser than its master!<\/p>\n

Pharaoh, the great Emperor, worshipped as a god by his people, can\u2019t keep the frogs out of his bed (Exod.<\/em> 8:3). What a rebuke to man\u2019s fancied greatness!<\/p>\n

And what about the sheer farce of Esther chapter 6 where Haman, convinced that he\u2019s ‘the man the king delights to honour’ lists off all the honours due to such a man, only to find that he\u2019s committed himself to give them all to his worst enemy, Mordecai? Haman is forced to dress Mordecai up in royal robes, to mount him on the king\u2019s horse, and then to lead him through the streets, shouting his honours. Can you read that chapter without laughing? I can\u2019t. But what a rebuke to man\u2019s lofty ambitions.<\/p>\n

And what about the teasing? Joseph\u2019s kindness to his brothers was beyond measure. He forgave them freely; he lavished gifts upon them. But he couldn\u2019t resist a sly dig as they set off back to dad. ‘Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, “Don\u2019t quarrel on the way!”.’<\/p>\n

Jesus the Master, Paul his pupil<\/h2>\n

What about the Lord Jesus himself? Jesus was not afraid to use comic pictures and stories to drive home his utterly serious message. One man with a plank sticking out of his eye is determined to get the speck out of another\u2019s. A man has a collection of pearls and decides to feed them to pigs. A camel tries to force itself through the eye of a needle (and no, there\u2019s no evidence that there was ever a gate in Jerusalem called the \u201cNeedle\u2019s Eye\u201d). These are absurd over-the-top pictures. People must have smiled when Jesus drew them. But they went home with an arrow of conviction in their hearts.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019s hearers must often have grinned as they recognised his wry caricatures of their friends and neighbours: a widow who wears out a ruthless judge by her constant nagging; a man who\u2019s got the cheek to knock up his neighbour in the middle of the night to borrow food for his visitor; a manager who\u2019s given notice but hangs on to his job long enough to make friends with his master\u2019s money (‘the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness!’). But as Jesus pressed home his applications, the same hearers must have squirmed as they found their own follies exposed.<\/p>\n

Paul was not above using puns and word-plays in his letters – sometimes with shocking force. Again they often can\u2019t be translated effectively into English. But we can still appreciate them. Judaising false teachers went on about the importance of peritome<\/em> – circumcision. But when Paul responded to them, he preferred to use a different word – katatome<\/em> – mutilation! (Phil.<\/em> 3:2). He was fond too of sarcasm. ‘Already you have everything you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings – without us (apostles)! I only wish that you were kings, so that we might be kings along with you!’ (1 Cor.<\/em> 4:8). I hope the Corinthians smiled ruefully as they realised the absurdity of their vanity.<\/p>\n

Of course, all these examples I\u2019ve given of humour in the Bible have a serious purpose. The Bible is a serious book. It was breathed out by God in order to make us ‘wise for salvation, for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness’ (2 Tim.<\/em> 3:15-16). But the Bible writers are not afraid to use puns, satire, farcical episodes – all the tools of comedy – to drive home their serious message.<\/p>\n

And what about fun?<\/h2>\n

So laughter can be used for serious purposes. But the Bible doesn\u2019t say that that\u2019s the only way it should be used. Laughter can simply be the natural overflowing of friendship, happiness, celebration. When Sarah at last gave birth to Isaac, she laughed! And she said, ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age’ (Gen.<\/em> 21:6). She knew that other folk would laugh when they thought of her – at her age! – nursing her first child. But it would be happy laughter, and she would laugh with them.<\/p>\n

The exiles who returned from exile in Babylon were like people in a dream. It seemed too good to be true. ‘Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy …’ (Psa.<\/em> 126:2). When a group of people who love one another are together, delighting in some happy experience, it takes very little to set them laughing! Jokes that would fall flat at other times seem hilariously funny. A bad pun is enough to set them giggling with delight. That was the way the returning exiles felt!<\/p>\n

C. S. Lewis describes so well this sort of happy laughter. Here\u2019s Screwtape again. You will see it, he says <\/p>\n

among friends and lovers reunited on the eve of a holiday. Among adults some pretext in the way of Jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m glad to think we\u2019ve tasted something of that on study week year after year. I\u2019m glad when I find it within the life of the church.<\/p>\n

C. H. Spurgeon – Pure Fun<\/h2>\n

For some Christians, natural, overflowing, happy laughter is rare. For others, it seems to be woven into their whole personality. C. H. Spurgeon was an intensely serious man, utterly committed to the cause of Christ and his kingdom. He went through harrowing experiences and through times of black depression. And yet, he was never far from laughter. I wish I could quote the whole chapter ‘Pure Fun’ from the Autobiography<\/em>,1<\/a><\/sup> but I\u2019ll just give a few sample paragraphs:<\/p>\n

Arriving late at a friend\u2019s house, he explained that he <\/p>\n

had stopped on the way to vote. \u2018To vote!\u2019 exclaimed the good man; \u2018but my dear brother, I thought you were a citizen of the New Jerusalem!\u2019 \u2018So I am,\u2019 replied Spurgeon, \u2018but my old man is a citizen of this world.\u2019 \u2018Ah! but you should mortify your old man.’ \u2018That is exactly what I did; for my old man is a Tory, and I made him vote for the Liberals!’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At one of the meetings when contributions for the new Tabernacle were brought in, the names of Knight and Duke were read out from the list of subscribers, whereupon Spurgeon said, \u2018Really, we are in grand company with a knight and a duke!\u2019 Presently, \u2018Mr. King, five shillings,\u2019 was reported, when the Pastor exclaimed, \u2018Why, the king has actually given his crown! What a liberal monarch!\u2019 Directly afterwards, it was announced that Mr. Pig had contributed a guinea. \u2018That,\u2019 said Mr. Spurgeon, \u2018is a guinea-pig.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. John Campbell was once in a second-hand bookseller\u2019s shop with Spurgeon, and, pointing to Thorn on Infant Baptism, he said, \u2018There is a thorn in the flesh for you.\u2019 Mr. Spurgeon at once replied, \u2018Finish the quotation, my brother – the messenger of Satan to buffet me.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Preaching at a wedding, <\/p>\n

the Pastor, addressing the bride, said, \u2018According to the teaching of the apostle, The husband is the head of the wife. Don\u2019t you try to be the head; but you be the neck, then you can turn the head whichever way you like.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You never have to read very far in Spurgeon\u2019s works – his sermons, his letters, his lectures – before coming across a whimsical comment, a lame pun, or a comical anecdote. Even his Commenting and Commentaries<\/em>2<\/a><\/sup> is littered with jokes. You might expect a catalogue of Bible commentaries to be the dryest of reading. Not if it\u2019s written by CHS! Here he is, reviewing Coke on Exodus: <\/p>\n

… next door to a fraud, for it is \u2018in the main a reprint of the work of Dr Dodd, without that author\u2019s name\u2019. Ah, Dr Coke, this is a burning shame!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s his comment on Barker\u2019s Thirty-six psalms with commentary and prayer for use in families<\/em>:<\/p>\n

What platitudes people will write for the use of families. Families will best use these commentaries and prayers by lining their cake tins with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Holiness and humour<\/h2>\n

Spurgeon wasn\u2019t unique. Luther, Berridge, and Latimer were all deeply serious men who overflowed with humour – and who turned it to good use. Here\u2019s a sample of Latimer\u2019s preaching – before the king of England, and many magistrates and judges:<\/p>\n

A good fellow on a time bade another of his friends to a breakfast, saying, \u2018If you will come you shall be welcome, but I tell you beforehand, you shall have but slender fare, one dish, and that\u2019s all.\u2019 \u2018What is that?\u2019 said he. \u2018A pudding, and nothing else.\u2019 \u2018Marry,\u2019 quoth he, \u2018you cannot please me better; of all meats that is for mine own tooth; you may draw me round about the town with a pudding.\u2019 These bribing magistrates and judges follow gifts faster than the fellow would follow his pudding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lovely. Courage and comedy marching together. Holiness and humour going hand in hand. I\u2019d like to think that\u2019s what we tasted on study week. I hope we\u2019ll find it often in our gatherings.<\/p>\n

All people that on earth do dwell,
\nSing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
\nHim serve with mirth, his praise forth tell;
\nCome ye before him and rejoice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Notes<\/h3>\n
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