Unconventional Humour in the Bible

Most Christians rightfully approach Scripture reading with much reverence and a certain somberness. We hunger to find a deeper meaning in the seriousness of the scribed words, which we like to consider mostly in the literal sense. Rarely do we think that these inspired texts can be humourous, and seldom do we fathom to enjoy a good laugh in them. Yet Qoheleth teaches that there is a proper time for everything, including humour (Ecclesiastes 3:4). We know that the Lord Jesus was not always sorrowful and serious during His physical life on earth. Some of us can admit that the Lord Jesus cried (John 11:35) and yet deny that He used humourous examples to have a little fun with His disciples while teaching valuable lessons.

We may prefer to perceive the Lord Jesus as a serious and stern teacher, not one who makes light moments in His packed itinerary. We forget that humans are made in the image and after the likeness of God, and if we can find certain things funny and make humorous comments every so often, so can God!  Whereas true Christian living admits that faith and hilarious are not mutually exclusive, it allows us to use it sparingly and with caution. But such unconventional humour is more subtle and easy to miss. A close examination of the recorded experiences in both the Old Testament and the New Testament reveals how the Lord God uses humour in unconventional ways to make a point. These include:

1. Ironic Punchlines

In those days, religious leaders were obsessed with trivialities and ignored weighty matters while concerning themselves with how to impress God and make every detail near perfect, but neglected to treat other people with dignity and respect (Matthew 23:23-28). The prescribed tithing was meticulous and noteworthy but quite hypocritical because it served to soothe the guilt of their neglect of justice, mercy and faith (Micah 6:8). To call out such hypocrisies, the Lord Jesus used ironic punchlines to teach that God doesn’t expect us to look clean; He wants to make us pure from the inside out.

Imagine a person so committed to a Kosher diet that swallowing a gnat was considered unholy given that it could not have bled properly under Kosher regulations, yet this very person somehow manages to swallow a whole camel at the same time. This is a complete loss of the sense of proportion that one could carefully strain the wine through gauze to avoid swallowing a microscopic insect and yet cheerfully swallow a whole camel! Another ignorance is when we are greatly concerned with the outward appearance of righteousness and yet unconcerned with an inside so full of sin and corruption. It is important to be concerned with both since true outward righteousness starts on the inside. The same principle applies to appearing beautiful outwardly (i.e., whitewashed tombs) and yet the inside is full of the dead men’s bones of the dead and all kinds of filth (Matthew 23:27).

Another irony is also noted in the story of Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1-4). Jonah’s fear of rejection and possibly death made him run in the opposite direction from that which God sent him. But the Lord God used three days and three nights in the belly of a fish to bring Jonah to the place he was meant to be. Despite Jonah’s half-hearted delivery, the people of Nineveh eagerly accepted God’s message and were granted mercy. The Lord Jesus compared His encounter with the scribes and Pharisees to Jonah’s experience, noting how Nineveh repented, but the generation at hand didn’t heed the word of the Lord (Matthew 12:38-42).

2. Extravagant Exaggeration

In our interactions with others, we are often blinded to our faults and quick to try to fix the others’ problems. The “eye” symbolises our spiritual perception of the world. It is much easier to identify someone else’s faulty worldview than to recognise ours. How arrogant it is to unthinkingly condemn another’s viewpoint without first determining if ours is accurate. To point this out, the Lord Jesus used the speck in the neighbour’s eye against the log in one’s eye to teach us to first seek help for ourselves before we attempt to sort out our neighbours (Luke 6:41-42).

Riches can be an obstacle to entering the Kingdom because they tend to make us satisfied with this life instead of longing for the age to come (Matthew 19:23-24). We should not assume that riches are always a sign of God’s blessing and favour. Riches encourage a spirit of false independence; thus, we tend to seek riches at the expense of seeking God. The impossibility of the largest common animal trying to squeeze through the smallest imaginable hole explains how difficult it is for people to trust the Lord Jesus instead of their wealth. The good news is that God’s grace is sufficient to save the rich man, and all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26).

3. Sarcasm

In the standoff between the prophet Elijah on one side and hundreds of Baal’s prophets and idol worshippers, Elijah sarcastically mocked them about their god, who must have been off somewhere, asleep, wandering away, on vacation, or meditating (1 Kings 18:27). When Elijah called on God to perform a miracle, the Lord showed how powerful He was and how false gods only let people down. With the prophet Isaiah, the Lord God draws our attention to the silliness of crafting idols for worship (Isaiah 44:14–17).

In the New Testament, St. Paul’s mission to the Gentile world had him locking horns on more than one occasion with legalistic converted Jews about the circumcision issue. He confronted Peter about it, and the early church leaders had decided whether circumcision was needed. Nonetheless, the crazy folks in Galatia were still trying to make it happen (Galatians 5:12). Paul, therefore, was exasperated as he journeyed through Galatia and concluded quite aggressively and with sarcasm that I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves! Paul suggests to these legalists that if they suppose trimming the prepuce will save them, then lopping off the whole must surely bring them salvation.

Paul’s sarcasm was not lost to the Church in Corinth either. The issue here was the presence of false apostles and deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13). Paul’s main motive was to expose their falsity in claiming to work on the same terms as Paul and his associates but gladly taking money from the Corinthians. They did not work for the same reasons as Paul and his partners. They were opponents attempting to seduce the Corinthians away from their loyalty to Paul. They made issues about Paul’s unimpressive physical presence and speaking skills (2 Corinthians 10:10), they questioned whether a true servant of God would experience so much suffering as claimed by Paul (2 Corinthians 6:3–10), and they mocked his commitment not to take any personal funding rom the Corinthians as they very happily did (2 Corinthians 11:7). Because of their attraction to the false apostles, Paul felt compelled to defend his apostleship by assuming his enemies’ foolish bragging, just to prove a point. The fraudsters claimed they were the real apostles, and Paul argued that their terms of reference were not the same as his; therefore, he boasted of being able to preach the gospel free of charge. Paul declared that he would continue to preach about the Lord Jesus for free and continue to triumph in it. He dared those super-apostles to do the same if they were anything like him. He even stated that he was not inferior to them even if they thought of him as nothing (2 Corinthians 12:11). Paul’s sarcasm implies his audacity to apologise for serving them for free.

Even the Lord Jesus did not shy away from lobbing a little sarcasm at people who were being nonsensical. To the Pharisees and scribes who complained about the disciples neglecting to wash their hands before eating, He complimented them on being the best at breaking the law (Mark 7:6-9). He sarcastically told them that they had a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God to keep their tradition! This was reflected in the many things that they did, including not permitting doing good for a father or mother and making void the word of God through these traditions that they were handing on.

On the first encounter with Nathanael, the Lord Jesus appreciated his opinion of Nazareth, saying, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (John 1:47).

At first glance, these words seem appreciative of Nathanael’s awesomeness as an Israelite, but what was implied in them was that this audacious prejudice made Nathanael think he was the authority on perfection, and the Lord Jesus called him out for it. When Nathanael realised that Jesus had supernatural knowledge (vs 48), he changed his tone, acknowledging the Lord Jesus as Rabbi, the Son of God, and the King of Isreal (John 1:48-49). Nathanael was convinced of the evidence, and his conversion was quick and complete. His doubts about the Lord Jesus vanished instantly, and he trusted Him as his Savior. This was the first confession of belief in the deity and recognition of the authentic kingship of the Lord Jesus by a disciple.

4. Absurdity

There are times when we are stuck in stubbornness that the Lord has to do the incongruous to get our attention. The story of Balaam, his donkey and an angel presents a case in point, where faith and funny are definitely not mutually exclusive (Numbers 22:21-39). This man named Balaam was riding his donkey on the way to an enemy camp when an angel blocked the path. The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, so the donkey turned off the road and went into the field. But Balaam struck the donkey, not once but three times, to turn it back onto the road. Then, the Lord God enabled the donkey to speak to Balaam so that his eyes could open, and he was able to see the angel of the Lord standing before him as an adversary with a sword drawn.

Another absurdity is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits (Acts 19:13-16). Thinking that Paul’s formula for success was simply invoking the name of Jesus, seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva tried to exorcise a possessed man. But the evil spirit replied to them, acknowledging knowing exactly who Jesus was and who Paul was but questioning who these others were. The absurd is that the evil spirits seemed to know their enemies well (i.e., Jesus and Paul) and had no intention of getting to know time wasters who posed no threat to them (i.e., sons of Sceva). Therefore, to teach them a lesson, the man with the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. The point is that not everybody has been granted authority to invoke the Name that is above all names in spiritual warfare. Because the seven sons of Sceva had no real relationship with the Lord Jesus, they had no spiritual power against the evil spirit, and they left the encounter naked and wounded.

5. Pranks and Pranking

No matter how much we try to make God submit to what we worship most, the Lord God shows how much better He is than our idols. In one such situation, the Philistines opposed Israel and captured the Ark of the Covenant, then they placed it in a temple devoted to a pagan god called Dagon (1 Samuel 5:1-40). The Philistines must have been jubilant and confident in the superiority of their god over the God of Israel that they dared to place the idol side by side with the Ark. They thought they had faced the God of Israel in battle and believed their god Dagon to have delivered them and defeated Israel. They had the ark of the covenant of Israel’s God standing as a trophy in the temple of their god Dagon, and their victory seemed complete.

However, when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, they found their god Dagon fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So, they picked him up and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, Dagon had (again!) fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord, and this time, the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off upon the threshold; only his trunk was left to him!

Take-Home Message

Did you know the adage that laughter is the best medicine comes from the Bible (cf. Proverbs 17:22)? It is fine to joke around, and it is important to know that faith and funny cannot be mutually exclusive. But, it would be wise to be clear about how and how often to spoof. We must remember always that context matters, and there is a time for everything, including a time to laugh and a time for seriousness (Ecclesiastes 3:4). We must learn to accept humour as a gift from the Lord God that has the power to both hurt and heal (Proverbs 14:13). But if we use it well, humour is like medicine for our souls (Proverbs 17:22). Turn to the Bible for a good laugh so that you do not take yourself and life too seriously.

*NB: Unless specifically stated, all Bible quotations are from the NRSVCE.