A 2×4 beam protruding from your left eye socket. Close your eyes and picture it. You swivel your head to the right and the crowd around you ducks to avoid being bludgeoned. You lean in to whisper to a friend and accidentally knock her unconscious. It’s an absurd image. Silly. Ridiculous. And it’s the illustration-of-choice our Lord deploys to speak about the utterly serious topic of religious hypocrisy.
I sometimes forget how funny God can be. Almost feels irreverent to call him funny in fact. But then I come to the Bible and find his rather routine use of humor to make his point: The bleeding satire in the book of Jonah. Elijah’s teasing of the prophets of Baal. Even God’s sarcasm to Job: “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!”(Job 38:19-21). Seems humor is shot through the Scriptures.
Still, it feels odd. We respectable Christians sometimes balk at the thought that God could be funny, or that funny could be good. But I wonder if that’s because we’ve been under-discipled on its value. As a father eager to disciple my five children, I’ve watched levity make a difference in their knowledge and love of Jesus. My aim in this article is to convince you of that. Think of this like a Humor Appreciation course. Why should we see it as an asset, not a liability in our discipleship (especially of our children)? Let me give you three brief reasons.
1. It Underlines the Absurd
Humor can function like a volume knob on the point we’re making. In Matthew 19 Jesus warns his disciples about the perils of loving money. To illustrate, he gave them an image to consider: “Again I tell you, 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.” (Matt. 19:24). What an absurd visual! A camel weighs 1,400 lbs (yes, I looked it up). A needle’s eye is…small (I knew that one myself). You can’t even picture this scene without tampering with physics. How much more force Jesus’ warning carried than if he’d just said, “Seriously guys, beware of much wealth!”
Finding ways to be “over-the-top” in illustrating truth to our kids not only makes teaching more fun, it can help highlight the importance of the topic.
2. It Hides the Dagger
Tastefully leveraging levity hides the dagger of God’s word. We’re all familiar with the story of the Trojan horse: What looked like a harmless gift was in reality a vehicle for war. Welcome to the function of humor in teaching. Humor has a way of disarming an audience. It loosens them. Makes them feel at ease. And when defenses drop, it’s easier for the sword of truth to hit its mark.
Of course, it must be said that there are unhelpful, tactless ways to do this (Insert some “preacher fail” meme here). People who don’t traffic in the comedic should exercise caution. Enjoying humor is for everyone. Deploying humor isn’t. But I can say this: As a preacher myself I have often been helped by inserting a light, playful comment before letting God’s word do its thing.
3. It Reminds Us God’s Not Grumpy
Believe it or not, occasional playfulness in our rhetoric can even be an apologetic for the kind of God we worship. It’s good to remember that we don’t serve a Stoic. The apostle Paul calls him “the blessed (or happy) God.” (1 Tim. 1:11). He is infinitely happy. Think of the laughter, and games, and jokes (yes, jokes!) that fill heaven’s halls. I can’t wait to take part! Whether you have a great sense of humor or you’re tone-deaf to it, we should all be able to appreciate this good gift as a glimpse of what God’s heart is like: Happy.
So parents, don’t be afraid to play. Yes, the gospel is blood-earnest serious. The stakes are infinitely high. But if the use of the absurd, the ironic, and even the silly played a role in our Savior’s instruction, if it shows up in God’s word, if it images something of his happy heartedness to the world, then surely it can have its place in our discipleship too.
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Real Bad Guys, by Jimmy Needham, effectively explains the problem of sin and its solution to kids ages eight and up in a fun and humorous way. Young readers will meet Millie, an ordinary kid who learns from a rogues’ gallery of cartoonish villains that everybody sins and has fallen short of God’s standards for goodness. By that measure, we are all Real Bad Guys in need of Jesus, the only Real Good Guy who can save us.
Read more about Real Bad Guys and how to purchase here.
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