Instead, they’d draw attention to themselves by walking slowly and piously, making their money clearly visible. No one would do anything so obviously self-promoting. Jesus told people, “When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others” (Matthew 6:2). ![]() But that’s the whole point-no sane person would! Therefore, Jesus was saying, don’t do the spiritual equivalent of that ridiculously stupid thing. When encountering a verse such as this one, which instructs us not to “cast your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6, NKJV), a modern reader might wonder why anyone would even think to do such an outlandish thing. People who worked the ground in that culture surely smiled at the self-evident answers. “Are grapes gathered from thornbushes?” He asks, “or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16). The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery says, “Jesus was a master of wordplay, irony and satire, often with an element of humor intermixed.” Jesus makes many serious points in humorous ways. As I share in my book Happiness, we have a sense of humor because as His image bearers, we are similar to God, who enjoys laughter. Once we realize that Christ was not always engaged in pious talk, we have made an enormous step on the road to understanding ĭid humor come into the universe as the result of sin? No. which are practically incomprehensible when regarded as sober prose, but which are luminous once we become liberated from the gratuitous assumption that Christ never joked. In The Humor of Christ, Elton Trueblood argued, But He did make hypocrites in positions of power the brunt of his wit. Jesus certainly never employed the caustic humor of late-night comedians who ridicule the weak minded or the unfortunate. Though some comedians today do this and we laugh, when we see Jesus use the technique in the Gospels, we usually don’t get it. Jewish humor often employed witty hyperbole-clever, startling, over-the-top statements-to get a laugh. In our culture, most humor is based on joke telling, verbal ambiguities, and physical comedy. ![]() Image: Loud & proud.Few of us are familiar with the culture Jesus lived in. (Speaking of which, hope everyone had a positively awesome pride weekend!) Here's hoping SEJ's buttery baritone croonings, beloved persona and progressive Christ-talk will woo a few more haters to the green grass of LGBTQ acceptance. SEJ isn't the first person to make such comments, but he's admittedly more influential than most other living people. ![]() When prompted, descriptions of Jesus often surround the same themes: love, compassion and forgiveness. He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together and that is what the church should be about. If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen. Instead, SEJ preached love and acceptance to "intelligent tabloid," The Mirror. ![]() Except, of course, this time it wasn't a song. The great man who brought us " Tiny Dancer" and Lion King's " Can You Feel The Love Tonight" has now brought forth another piece of lyrical bliss. Obviously we're talking about none other than Sir Elton John. Especially a fabulous, showtune-singing openly gay knight. It may be 2014, but there are few things cooler than a knight.
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