OUR HUMOR SHOULD NOT LEAD TO FOOLISH TALK

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; … neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, …but rather giving of thanks” (EPHESIANS 5:1, 4)

Few things are as useful in the Christian life as a gentle sense of humor and few things are as deadly as a sense of humor out of control.

 

Many lose the race of life through frivolity. Paul is careful to warn us. He says plainly that the Christian’s characteristic mood should not be one of jesting and foolish talking but rather one of thanksgiving. It is significant that the apostle classifies levity along with uncleanness, covetousness and idolatry.

 

Now obviously an appreciation of the humorous is not an evil in itself. When God made us He included a sense of humor as a built-in feature, and the normal human being will possess this gift in some degree at least. The source of humor is the ability to perceive the incongruous.

 

Humor is one thing, but frivolity is quite another. Cultivation of a spirit that can take nothing seriously is one of the great curses of society, and within the church it has worked to prevent much spiritual blessing that otherwise would have descended upon us. We have all met those people who will not be serious. They meet everything with a laugh and a funny remark. This is bad enough in the world, but positively intolerable among Christians.

 

I see no value in gloom and no harm in a good laugh. My plea is for a great seriousness which will put us in mood with the Son of Man and with the prophets and apostles, that we may attain that moral happiness which is one of the marks of spirituality.

 W. Tozer