I wonder if you\u2019ve ever had this experience. You come face to face with undisguised sin\u2014blatant, obvious, unquestionable\u2014and paraphrase the Bible in response. Perhaps, \u201cThere go the blind leading the blind. That fall\u2019s gonna hurt\u201d (Matt. 15:14); or, \u201cHe sure knows how to shine the outside of the cup, but there\u2019s a month\u2019s worth of milk scum inside\u201d (Luke 11:39); or, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to watch that fool tear down her own house board by board\u201d (Prov. 14:1). If you\u2019ve done this enough, you\u2019ve inevitably encountered the response, \u201cThat\u2019s not very loving,\u201d or even worse, \u201cThat\u2019s not very Christlike.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem here goes deeper than mere biblical literacy. In many Christian circles, there is an almost irrepressible impulse toward winsomeness\u2014a dogged refusal to offend. As a result, any words, phrases, or tactics that are not governed by that unyielding \u2018niceness\u2019 are deemed to be unloving (where love is defined as a kind of universal kindness). At its worst, this imbalance is read back into Scripture, whitewashing any of the less-than-gentle bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, if we let Scripture speak for itself, we find much to undermine the tyranny of winsomeness-at-any-cost. Even more, we may discover\u2014to our surprise or discomfort\u2014that the Author (and authors) of Scripture doesn\u2019t shy away from holy mockery. Especially in the Prophets and when Jesus deals with recalcitrant sinners, we find that God often employs satire\u2014, which might be defined as \u201cthe exposure of human vice or folly through rebuke or ridicule.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a> In fact, we see that Leland Ryken is right in saying, \u201cThe Bible is a thoroughly satiric book.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this brief essay, I want to provide a sampling of the spicy speech that we find scattered throughout God\u2019s Word. A failure to recognize satire as a prominent biblical genre will hamstring our reading of Scripture and, as a result, it will leave our speech impoverished. We will flinch from saying, \u201cThus says the Lord,\u201d if we don\u2019t recognize that our Lord\u2019s words often bear the serrated edge of satire.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Old Testament bristles with satire. The lowest hanging fruit may be Elijah mocking the prophets of Ba\u2019al. He taunts: \u201cCry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened\u201d (1 Ki. 18:27). This scathing sarcasm hardly needs comment, yet note that Elijah includes scatological language here\u2014though cloaked in euphemism.[4]<\/sup><\/a> These prophets believed Ba\u2019al occupied one kind of throne; Elijah imagined him presiding over another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or consider Jeremiah, who confronts the men of Judah in ways that might be deemed less than subtle. In Jeremiah 5:8 he calls them \u201cwell-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor\u2019s wife.\u201d Therefore, God will judge them for their \u201cadulteries and neighings<\/em>, [their] lewd whorings, on the hills in the field\u201d (Jer. 13:26\u201327). Yes, more staid language was available to Jeremiah, but through the vehicle of satire, Jeremiah exposes Judah\u2019s immoral ways as bestial, no better than horses in heat. He lays bare Judah\u2019s pastoral perversions compared with God\u2019s moral norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazingly, when Ezekiel confronts the same spiritual prostitution of God\u2019s people with Egypt, he manages to make the metaphor even more explicit. Speaking of Jerusalem, he declares, \u201cShe lusted after their genitals\u2014as large as those of donkeys\u201d (Ezek. 23:19\u201320 NET). And in the extended parable of Ezekiel 16, the prophet presents Israel\u2019s sin as akin to working a street corner: Israel \u201cspread [her] legs to every passerby\u201d (Ezek. 16:25 NET). The chapter is hard to read, and yes, every bit of it is the inspired, uncomfortably satiric word of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Isaiah also levels mockery at idolaters and their idols. He notes how hard the \u201cgod-smiths\u201d have to work at their craft (Isa. 44:9\u201313). How great can a god be whose maker needs a lunchbreak so he won\u2019t faint? And to cook that lunch, this needy creature takes the leftover wood from his newly-carved god to fuel a fire. Half becomes a deity, and half roasts his grain. Half the log he bows before, the other heats his beans. Isaiah does not let the irony pass silently. For, the folly deserves to be mocked: \u201cShall I fall down before a block of wood?\u201d (Isa. 44:19). Elsewhere, Isaiah politely asks how an idol, which must be carried by beasts and propped up to stand, can deliver those who cry to it for help. It can\u2019t even move independently, let alone bear others out of hardship (Isa. 46:1\u20137).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Terry Lindvall, in his work on religious satire, summarizes, \u201cHebrew prophets once assumed the mantle of holy mocking to uproot the brambles in God\u2019s vineyard so that grapes might grow.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a> Perhaps Shakespeare got it backward when he said, \u201cJesters do oft prove prophets.\u201d[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, satire in the Old Testament is not confined to the prophets. Job repeatedly ridicules his \u201ccomforters\u201d as those who murder wisdom (Job 12:1). And Proverbs provides a fund of satiric word pictures. The sluggard is a creaky door, too lazy even to eat (Prov. 26:14; 19:24); a quarrelsome wife worse than Chinese water torture (Prov. 19:13); and a beautiful woman sans wisdom like putting lipstick on a hog (Prov. 11:22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this is all Old Testament. What about the New? Surely, the course speech of the prophets finds a reprieve in a mild-mannered Jesus, right? Far from it. To borrow Jesus\u2019s own words: \u201cHave you not read?\u201d (Matt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10, 26; Luke 6:3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we actually read the New Testament, we find that our Lord and his apostles do not jettison this holy mockery. For example, in Acts 13, we are told explicitly that the Holy Spirit inspired the serrated tongue of Paul against the evil wizard Elymas. Paul, \u201cfilled with the Holy Spirit<\/em>, looked intently at him and said, \u2018You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?\u2019\u201d (Acts 13:9\u201310). Behold what Joe Rigney calls the \u201cSpirit-inspired insult.\u201d<\/a> Here the fruit of the Spirit tastes like withering mockery, hyperbole, and a dash of ridicule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere, Paul affirms an insulting stereotype\u2014\u201cCretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons\u201d\u2014and then makes that stereotype the ground<\/em> for godly rebuke. \u201cTherefore rebuke them [the Cretans] sharply, that they may be sound in faith\u201d (Ti. 1:12\u201313). Here is a Pauline imperative to employ subversive language to combat sin. Additionally, Paul uses language not fit for the dinner table. In fact, he chooses to use \u201ca vulgar term for fecal matter\u201d when he deems all things as \u201cdung (skubalon<\/em>)\u201d compared with the super-surpassing beauty of Christ (Phil. 3:8; see the NET note). Paul apparently had no problem using a term for dog doo and the name of the Holy One of Israel in the same sentence if the image laden language helped his hearers to see how worthless religiosity is compared with God himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps most strikingly, Paul insists that men obsessed with circumcision might as well perform the whole amputation (Gal. 5:12)! In the very next verse, he demands that love dominate Christian conduct. So, unless Paul is a blatant hypocrite (which he\u2019s not), his cutting insult does not violate the ethic of love, freedom, and harmony that immediately follows. Rather, if we simply apply the next two verses (Gal. 5:13\u201315) to Paul\u2019s invitation to emasculation, he is actually obeying the law by loving these men enough to use the serrated edge to cut sin from their hearts, lest their penchant for circumcision lead to eternal damnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Holy mockery is not at odds with loving speech. Rather, sharp speech can be (and must be) employed with genuine love. As we will see, the God who is love also uses speech that cuts and condescends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, not only did God inspire satire, he himself mocks<\/em>. When the rebels of the earth and their foolish kings form a conspiracy against God, he not only laughs, he \u201ctaunts them\u201d (Ps. 2:4 NET).[7]<\/a> <\/sup>We see this same dynamic when divine wisdom laughs at the tempest of troubles that breaks upon fools and then mocks their distress (Prov. 1:26\u201327).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fittingly, those who are \u201crighteous,\u201d men and women like God, join in the chorus of divine laughter. They \u201claugh\u201d because they see the massive folly of sin: \u201cSee the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!\u201d (Ps. 52:5\u20137).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Jesus, the <\/em>righteous man, often used subversive language. Perhaps we too easily miss the sharp corners of his speech because we\u2019ve toddler-proofed the whole affair so no one accidentally gets hurt. However, our Lord harbored no qualms about satirizing religious hypocrites, christening them a brood of vipers, sons of the devil, blind fools, whitewashed tombs, and more. Just take a moment to read Matthew 23. It\u2019s a MasterClass in holy mockery. He even dubbed them traveling salesmen for hell (Matt. 23:15). Yet, Jesus\u2019s favorite form of satire was the hyperbolic (and often humorous) exaggeration.[8]<\/sup><\/a> He spoke of almsgiving heralded by parade, camels squeezing through spaces too small for an ant, unappeasable critics acting like spoiled children, and blind guides (Matt. 6:2; 19:24; 11:16\u201319; 15:14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus regularly uses humor as a polemic tool to confront sin and folly. He illustrates the hypocrisy of his hearers by appealing to the ludicrous image of an eye surgeon operating to remove a bit of sawdust from his patient\u2019s eye, all the while, keeping his head cocked to avoid bumping the table with the two-by-four imbedded in his own (Matt. 7:1\u20136). He lambasts ignorant leaders with the image of a blind tour guide at the Grand Canyon (Matt. 15:14). He ridicules selective obedience by comparing it to a man who strains the pulp out of his orange juice with tweezers and then drinks it down with gravel (Matt. 23:4). Jesus is blood earnest about the deadly seriousness of these sins, but that does not prevent him from rendering them ridiculous to expose their folly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Examples of Jesus\u2019s satiric wit and humor abound. Ryken summarizes, \u201cJesus was a master of wordplay, irony and satire, often with an element of humor intermixed.\u201d[9]<\/sup><\/a> The Word made flesh was, unsurprisingly, a master of the word in all its forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, subversive persuasion pervades Holy Writ. Even in this selective look at the Book, it should be clear that satire is a thoroughly biblical category. The prophets use it, the wise men use it, the apostles use it, and Jesus uses it. If we are careful readers, we cannot ignore the serrated edge of Scripture, lest we become like men who look in a mirror and go away unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As one theologian summarized the situation we find ourselves in perfectly: \u201cPlenary verbal revelation requires that biblical style, as well as content, is inspired. Scripture\u2019s inclusion of satire surely vindicates its prima facie <\/em>legitimacy in Christian discourse.\u201d[10]<\/sup><\/a> If our speech ought to be Bible-saturated, we should seek to imitate not only the content we find in Scripture but the kinds of speech (including satire) and the proportions as well. So the question becomes, how then shall we mock?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Can satirical humor be holy? The biblical authors and our Lord Himself are no strangers to loving, cutting speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":20481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Can satirical humor be holy? The biblical authors and our Lord Himself are no strangers to loving, cutting speech.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[]","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,12,1971,38],"tags":[57,282,2084,257,2083,677,2081,2082],"scripture-reference":[2079,2080],"post_folder":[],"ppma_author":[2085],"class_list":["post-20471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-concise","category-may-2025","category-theme","tag-christ-as-center","tag-christ-over-all","tag-humor","tag-messiah","tag-satire","tag-scripture","tag-speech","tag-the-tongue","scripture-reference-1-samuel","scripture-reference-2080"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Manley-Shortform-scaled-e1746156237101.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-01-13 11:34:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":2085,"user_id":12,"is_guest":0,"slug":"clinton-manley","display_name":"Clinton Manley","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Manley-Author.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Manley-Author.jpg"},"author_category":"1","job_title":"","church_city_state":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","church_site":"","user_url":"","description":"Clinton Manley<\/strong> is an editor for Desiring God and an adjunct instructor for\u00a0Bethlehem College and Seminary<\/a>. He and his wife, Mackenzie, have three children and live in Saint Paul. Clint is a member of Christ the King Church<\/a> in Stillwater, Minnesota."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20471"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20795,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20471\/revisions\/20795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20471"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-reference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-reference?post=20471"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=20471"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=20471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Leland Ryken, A Complete Handbook of Literary Forms in the Bible<\/em> (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 180.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
2. Leland Ryken, \u201cSatire,\u201d in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery<\/em>, by James C. Wilhoit et al. (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 762.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
3. Douglas Wilson popularized the term \u201cserrated edge\u201d as a description of the satirical language of Scripture in his book by the same title (A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking<\/em>, (Moscow, ID: Cannon Press, 2003)). I\u2019m deeply indebted to Wilson\u2019s assiduous attention to Scripture there and elsewhere. His insights laid the groundwork for this article and launched my thinking on how wise Christians should wield the serrated edge.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
The Old Testament Bite<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4. \u201cScatalogical\u201d should not be confused with eschatological. The former has to do with \u201cpotty language\u201d (cf. Phil. 3:8); the latter has to do with the last things.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
5. Terry Lindvall, God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert<\/em> (New York: NYU Press, 2015), 2.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
6. Stephen Greenblatt et al., eds., The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies<\/em>, 3rd Ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016), 748.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
New Covenant Continuity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
God Mocks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. Cf. Ps. 37:12\u201313; 59:8; Prov. 19:4; Nah. 3:6<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
8. \u201cIf there is a single person within the pages of the Bible that we can consider to be a humorist, it is without doubt Jesus. . . . The most characteristic form of Jesus\u2019 humor was the preposterous exaggeration\u201d (Ryken, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery<\/em>, 410).<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
9. Ryken, Dictionary<\/em>, 410.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Thoroughly Satiric<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
10. Tom Woolford, \u201cThe Use of Satire in the Book of Isaiah and in Christian Ministry,\u201d Foundations<\/em>, no. 77 (Autumn 2019): 26.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"