God and Humor
God does have a sense of humor and since He created man in His image (Genesis 1:27), man inherited the ability to express and appreciate humor. The Bible says, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful” (Proverbs 15:13, 30; 16:24; 17:22). The prophet David points God as the giver of laughter: “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy'” (Psalm 126:1-2).
Humor is vividly expressed in God’s creation. Animals like monkeys, dolphins, otters, dogs, cats and penguins and many others bring laughter to those that view them. If God had no sense of humor, this would not be possible. For this reason, people own pets to laugh and enjoy them. We read that “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones” (Proverbs 22:17). There is certainly a close relation between the thoughts, the feelings, and the physical condition of the body (Proverbs 16:24).
God certainly wants His children to be happy and laugh (Ecclesiastes 3:4) but we need to remember that in our own use of humor, we must exercise the Christian graces. God does not condone laughter over sinful things. And, any humor that is done at the expense of someone else’s feelings, that only breaks them down instead of building them up, is something that we should not do (Colossians 4:6; Ephesians 4:29).
The Bible tells of God’s sense of humor in the story of first Samuel 5 when the Israelites were using the Ark of the Covenant like a good-luck charm (in taking it to battle), and the Philistines ended up capturing it and placed it in their temple before their god Dagon. The Philistines came into their temple the next day and found Dagon flat on his face before the ark. So, they set him back up. The next morning, there he was again, but this time he had his hands and head cut off as a sign of his powerlessness before the God of the ark (1 Samuel 5:1-5). This story presents a comical picture of the powerlessness of the man-made gods.
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
