Wednesday, May 22, 2024

God Attribute, 121

~ A God of Humor ~

 

This Series  ~  This series of posts looks at some of the many attributes of God.  Generally, we move in alphabetical order.

 

Introduction  ~  We often do, and should, read the Bible with reverence. However, that does not mean we should not appreciate the humor of the Bible—much of which we miss because of cultural changes.

 

Scripture  ~  Mark 3:16-17 lists rather formally the names of the apostles: ‘And so He appointed the Twelve: Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges or “Sons of Thunder”…’ Can you just picture Jesus actually calling them that? There is a reason for that nickname, though, as in their fervor they are unhappy with a man using Jesus’s name to heal the sick and they zealously try to stop him (Mark 9:38-40; Luke 9:38-39).

 

“They show the same zeal in a passage which soon follows in (Luke 9:53-56), where the brothers want to call down fire upon a Samaritan village for refusing to welcome Jesus. There is a certain innocence about the directness of their apparently youthful response, but the very idea of Jesus hanging such a nickname on them, one rooted well-enough in reality to appear in Scripture, puts Christ in a much more human light than the austere, thoughtful, driven, combative, instructive, and empathetic Christ who dominates the Synoptics and our own concepts of the Lord.” — Charles Kestermeier (Humor in the Bible).

 

Quotes  ~  Consider a few quotes from G.K. Chesterton.

 

“There was 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.”

 

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”

 

“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”

“It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”

 

And Steve Wilkens has written: “As I read theology through the lens of humor,” he writes, “I discovered that I don’t just love God. I like God.”


~ Robert Lloyd Russell, ABUNDANT LIFE NOW blog.


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