Some nice, well-meaning Christians who drink only decaf and listen to music with a soothing acoustic guitar are often quick to quote verses such as Ephesians 4:29, which says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear,” and also Ephesians 5:4, which says, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”

However, they tend to be worldly in their definition of what qualifies for these categories. They rarely allow the Scriptures to define appropriate speech but rather import politically correct and/or Victorian worldly definitions of nicety. To do so they often quote verses such as Galatians 5:13–14, which says, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” What they conveniently overlook is that this is written by the same guy who said religion is like a steaming pile that the neighbor’s dog leaves in your yard. Furthermore, his words that precede this amazing love statement are: “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!”⁹

Indeed, we are to be “kind to one another,”¹⁰ which means that Christians should be kind to other Christians, but apparently if someone wants to say that we need Jesus plus something else for our justification (e.g., circumcision for the Judaizers in Galatia) then we should also mock them and ask them to cut their whole pickle off and attend Bobbitt Bible Church as a sign of true varsity religious devotion.

Paul’s ability to connect his mocking invitation to self-emasculation with love may be what Peter meant when he said that some of Paul’s writings are “hard to understand.”¹¹ Thus, our speech should be not only gracious but also salty, as Colossians 4:6 says: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” We will examine just a few salty sections of the New Testament so we can spend more time studying stand-up Jesus.

In Acts 12:12–17 we read that Peter was locked out of a church prayer meeting. Likewise, Revelation 3:20 gives a funny picture of Jesus being locked out of a church potluck and pounding on the door, saying, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Also, in Luke 24:18, after Jesus’ resurrection, there is a hilarious discussion between Jesus and some guys as they walked together on the road. As if Jesus were stupid and did not watch the news, they asked him about himself, and a guy named Cleopas asked Jesus, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” The subtle irony is worth at least a smirk.

HUMOR AND JESUS

In the closing line of his classic book Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton speaks of Jesus’ lack of humor: “There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”¹¹ According to Chesterton, Jesus was probably not funny.

But Jesus was funny. This fact is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Jesus’ entire earthly ministry. Our inability to see Jesus as funny is not rooted in the pages of Scripture, but rather in the way Jesus has been portrayed in many popular films. In 1927 the legendary director and devout Christian Cecil B. DeMille produced the life of Jesus in the movie King of Kings. He was very careful to portray Jesus as very pious with little humanity; he even had a glowing aura around him, which made him appear like something of an icon on the screen. He was without humor and appeared as a very serious holy man.

The Library of Congress holds more books about Jesus (seventeen thousand) than about any other historical figure, roughly twice as many as about Shakespeare, the runner-up.¹² One University of Chicago scholar has estimated that more has been written about Jesus in the last twenty years than in the previous nineteen centuries combined. ¹³ Yet I have found only one book that examines Jesus’ humor, Elton Trueblood’s The Humor of Christ, published in 1964. Trueblood says: