Stop me if you've heard this one before. A preacher from Minnesota and an Engineer from Massachusetts walk into a McDonalds in Oklahoma...

Well, it sounds like the start of a great joke! If nothing else these two knuckle heads joked around for an hour or so and forgot their worries; one taking time off from working relentlessly on getting a house in shape and the other on his way to his mother's funeral.

A good sense of humor can help carry us through the most difficult of times. I think it was easy for the Lord to tease Nathaniel early on in his ministry about a private complaint he apparently said, but by the time Peter was paying taxes out of fish's mouths Jesus was being harassed by scribes, lawyers, Pharisees, even the devil himself. A quiet moment spent with a friend, exchanging a laugh over some minor matter is a healthy escape when the world is crushing down on us.

I think there are many places humor is found in the bible, and while it is far from a comedy troupe I think it is both appropriate and educational. Consider Elijah at Mt Carmel, when he was teasing the prophets of Baal about their god’s lack of response. Maybe he’s traveling? Maybe he’s going to the bathroom? This isn’t cockiness on his part, Elijah was highlighting the difference between a make believe powerless false god and Jehovah, and it seemed to be amusing to him. (Dumping water on the offering was a nice touch, too)

Jehu had his own fun time with the prophets of Baal, especially when he rounded them all up in the name of “Baal worship” and killed every last one of them. He seemed to have a fine time carrying out the will of God.

How about Sampson and his riddle that no one could figure out until they plowed with his heifer? Ok, his temper got the best of him too but obviously he was having fun joking around with those Philistines.

Haman was going to have a high time with Mordecai, but ended up hanging out alone. Wow, talk about messing up the punch line and being left at the end of his rope!

More seriously (get it? We’re being serious about humor? Oh never mind…) consider Paul who was wishing every one who’d heard his preaching was in the same state as he was – except for the "bonds" of course. I thought that was pretty witty of him!

There are lots of occasions of humor in scripture. Proverbs is full of them, and full of funny (but thoughtful!) observations. “The wringing of the nose brings blood”, who can’t chuckle at that? Paul also expressed quite the sense of humor several times. At Mar's Hill he seems to be the jovial, kindly preacher who uses gentle words and a smile on his face to make a point. Many times he makes fun of himself, too. And who can forget his comment in Philemon where he offers to pay for the runaway slave’s debts, but is quick to mention how the master owes Paul already? That seems like a tongue in cheek thing to me.

There were times, the writers point out, that God winked at. He humored us. But now commands every man to repent. The thing is, there is a time and a place for humor and sometimes it is the wrong time. The sons of Aaron figured that out, as did Belshazzar.

But I thought about this as I was driving along with Deniese on the way back from Oklahoma this past week because of a joke I had read. A certain deacon was reading the paper one morning and happened to see his name in the obituary. Wow! So he phoned one of the elders to see if they had read it as well. When the phone picked up and he’d said hello the elder said “Um… hello… Where are you calling from?”

Randy