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I do have, sometimes, a little bit that I have to overcome if people have only seen me in the bowtie, if they've only seen me in the videos, and they don't see... That's why I'm pretty prolific in putting out as much as I can of the other stuff, too, so that they understand, okay, there's...
I'm playing a role when I'm making jokes, and I'm enjoying that. It's fun, but there's a serious side, too. And so, there is a danger that someone could think that you're just a jester, just a clown, and so I'm careful with that.
And I talked about that in the thing, too. A man who cannot be serious cannot be trusted.
To The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport. Here, we will answer your biblical questions. We are looking to do biblical interpretations, applications of all things in the Christian life.
I am the executive director of Striving for Eternity Ministries and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member of the over 50 and growing, heavily vetted podcasts. We are sure that you will find something worth listening to there.
We put out about 40 hours a week, so unless you're a truck driver or something, you probably won't be able to get to all of it, but you can pick and choose what you enjoy. We're going to have what I think will be a very fun episode today, because we're talking about humor, good humor.
No, not the ice cream. We're actually talking about laughing. And I figured if we're going to talk about humor, we should bring someone in, the king of amillennialism himself, also known as your Calvinist, Mr. Keith Foskey.
Welcome, Keith.
Hi, Andrew. Thank you for having me on your show. As always, I appreciate it. This is my, what, second or third time on, so I'm thankful to have been asked back. That means I must be doing a good job.
Let's get set to back row. Actually, lay first, in case folks don't know you, a lot of people think of you because of some of the videos you do. You have been known kind of, somewhat your typecast for the videos you do on the international meetings or interdenominational meetings, but on your website, I want you to talk because there's a lot more that you put out.
You put out a lot of things for people having home worship with ways of memorizing scripture, different lessons, things like that that you're putting out regularly. You have a news show. You have your whole lot more when we start including what you have with your role as pastor of your church.
So let folks know right off the bat a little bit about you, your YouTube channel, your other things that you're doing, so that everyone would be able to be encouraged to go and check that out.
I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida. I've been serving as the pastor of that church since 2006, so this is my 18th year serving as the pastor, and we have a sermon audio ministry that we started about 10 years ago that has an entire library of solid teaching on it, and so a lot of people don't know that's available.
So I say, if you want to hear lessons from the Bible, I've taught through entire books of the Bible. I have two other elders who teach alongside of me. One's currently teaching through Daniel, another's teaching through Job.
I'm preaching through 2 Corinthians, and so I point people to that. That's the most important thing.
Well, that makes a lot of sense because you said there's two other men, so when you said solid teaching, I was wondering about that.
I bring up the rear. So a little over a year ago, I've been doing the podcast for several years, and I really enjoyed it, but a little over a year ago, my wife sort of had this idea of doing some funny short videos that might point people toward the podcast, and we did an interdenominational video.
The interdenominational video took off, and because it took off, it allowed me to start having a little bit more opportunities to do some other videos that I had wanted to do. So you mentioned other things.
I am currently doing a family worship series, and that was actually by request. A church member said, hey, can you do something that I can use to help lead family worship? So now I do a weekly family worship video.
It's about 8 to 10 minutes long, and I also do my news show, which is called Church Soup. It's a playoff of the old TV show Talk Soup and the SNL Weekend Update. It's sort of a combination of those things where I talk about the news of the day that's happening in churches, and I make fun of it.
And then I also do other things. I do movie reviews. I do sermon reviews, just anything that sort of catches my fancy and I want to do it. But in general, I have at least one or two videos that go out per week along with my podcast, which is the last thing I'll mention, and that is the Your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey.
I've had a ton of people on the show. I've had you on the show. I had you at the last time we were in Tullahoma together. I interviewed you. I've had James White and Leighton Flowers and several other people on the program.
It's an interview-style show, so generally I'm interviewing people. Sometimes I'll do it as just a lesson show. I'll do a lesson, but I save that for other things, like the family worship and stuff. So that's it.
That's who I am.
And we should mention you have rebranded the podcast to be Your Calvinist. So if folks knew from before and they're like, hey, wait, I thought, yeah, if you haven't been listening for a while, it's new, you've rebranded it.
And since you always ended it with I'm Your Calvinist, it makes sense.
Yeah, Your Calvinist was how people knew me on Twitter, and they weren't always connecting conversations with a Calvinist. That was the title before. So I just went with Your Calvinist Podcast, and I do want to give a shout-out to Hans Feeney.
Hans Feeney is the brain behind the Lutheran satire videos. He is currently writing me a tremendous new introduction song. It's a completely original song. It's an intro for the podcast. It is hilarious.
I've gotten the first draft. My wife and I laughed about it. It is such a great intro. So I think people will remember the new name after the new song comes out. It's going to be something special. It's set in the theme of an 80s TV show theme song, if you can imagine that.
And Hans is so talented. So that's coming out hopefully pretty soon.
So Lutheran is writing your intro for a Calvinist show.
Okay.
The only problem with you changing your name is you went from the top of my list in podcasts to the bottom, right? You went from conversations to yours. So now I have to scroll down.
Oh, I didn't know about that.
Because you're one of the ones.
Maybe I should have put one Calvinist podcast.
I have a lot of podcasts that are there and some that I'll get around to listening to. Yours is one that I make sure I listen to. So I have to like purposely scroll through the list of 90 to find yours.
Well, I appreciate that. I do appreciate that.
It's worth the scroll. So let's give the background. So I, on your podcast, you had a talk that you had been invited down to Florida to talk about, and it was a very interesting title. I know that I saw it on the YouTube channel and was like, huh, okay, that's interesting.
And I got to mark that so I remember to get back and watch that one. And then you put it on the podcast. So I was like, oh, I can listen to it. And you started off with that. I'm just going to let you give the title and explain how that came about.
And then maybe you started off with giving the audience two jokes. So I want the other joke, you know?
Oh, I gave it. Okay. Well, the title was A Theology of Comedy. Pastor Uri, who is the pastor of the church there, which is Providence Church in Pensacola, he sent me a message last October, and that was about the time when the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson was really blowing up.
And for those who don't know, I do a little skit where I pretend to be Doug Wilson, but the off-brand version or Harbor Freight version of Doug Wilson, and people think that's really funny. And so I did a thing called Open Borders October because he does no quarter November.
So I did Open Borders October where he talks about everything controversial. I talked about everything that's universally beloved. I talked about kittens. I talked about just all kinds of funny stuff.
And instead of setting things on fire, I put an iPhone in a, I froze an iPhone. So like I felt like it was this, the total bizarro Doug Wilson. Pastor Uri messaged me. He said, Hey, can you come to Pensacola and talk about the importance of humor in the Christian life?
And so I wrote a message entitled A Theology of Comedy. And I learned a lot in preparing that message. And I feel like people who have listened to it have said that it hit on things they didn't expect.
Cause it wasn't just an hour long comedy act. It was talking about how humor affects us physically, how humor can affect us emotionally and spiritually. And so that was the heart of it.
Yeah. A lot of it did resonate with me and I'll tell you why. When I do our evangelism training, okay. Our evangelism training we call Ambassador Evangelism and we have three principles. The first principle is usually kind of sets some people off, but I say disarm their defenses by using humor and being polite.
The second one is to disarm our own defenses by learning how to ask good questions. The third is avoid being called judgmental by using the law. But that first one, people are like, what? Like it's evangelism.
It's not supposed to be funny. And I ended up spending a lot of time instructing the audience on the fact of what humor does. And when you think about when you're evangelizing and it's something where people get emotional about it, it is really disarming.
And especially if you're like me and you make fun of yourself. And I mean, Keith, I know you don't have the advantage I have. I got a lot of material to work with here that you don't have. But you know, it is so disarming, especially if you make fun of yourself.
You don't have to be like a comedian, but just the fact that what humor does, and that's what I really would like to dig into. And the other thing as a pastor or preacher, and I don't know if you've experienced this, but when I was a young pastor and I would sit there, we had a guy front row and he would sit right in the front.
I didn't know why, but he would be in the front. And then when I'd have everyone sit down after the prayer and I say, amen, he would just put his head straight back, close his eyes. And he stayed that way until the closing prayer.
And like everyone looks at him and says, this guy's sleeping. And I one night, one time I like asked him like, you know, Hey, what do you do? Well, the reality was he wasn't sleeping. He was trying to pay attention, but it's frustrating as a pastor or preacher to see someone fall asleep.
And you know that it's just, it's, they've been up late. There was something happened, whatever. And I had a guy I knew that he would actually stop in the middle of a message and go, Hey, hey, wake that guy up.
And yeah,.
That prevents people from falling asleep a bit because they don't want to be embarrassed. But I'm like, is there a better way to do it? And I learned humor the way humor works and you said some of this, but what humor does is it actually does wake you up.
It releases some endorphins and it actually helps you to pay more attention. And so I tell people like, typically if I see someone starting to doze off, I try to figure some way that I can add some humor in at that point, not to be funny for no reason, not to, you know, but to help the audience.
And so there was a lot of that, that you talked about in there. So, I mean, first of all, let me, let me do this. I want to encourage everyone to go to your Calvinist podcast and listen to the full thing.
Cause I don't want, I don't want Keith unpacking everything here, but with that, just give, if you could, some of the high level, what is it that humor does to us? How's it helpful?
Well, in the message I broke down Proverbs 17, 22, which says a merry heart does good luck of medicine, or some translations say is good medicine and a broken spirit crushes the bones or the term there dries the bones.
And Jameson Fawcett Brown, I mentioned this, it says it's like the marrow gets sucked out of the bones when the spirit is broken. And what we have is we have a contrast of two things. The contrasting things are a merry heart and a broken spirit.
And so when we're trying to interpret what's meant by that, we sort of have to look at the parallel. That's how we just sort of determine. And we know that there can be different ways to interpret a merry heart.
It doesn't just mean a laugh fest. It doesn't just mean that, but we also know that within the concept of a merry heart, generally merriness includes a disposition of laughter, a disposition of happiness.
It's not people who are merry aren't looking like they're sucking on persimmon juice. You know, it doesn't work that way. And so most people who read this recognize that we're dealing with something that is a, that deals with our countenance.
We can see on the face, whether the person has a broken spirit or whether the person has a merry heart. And the reason for that is there is a physical reality that happens when we are joyful or happy, or we are expressing laughter.
And I'll read, I will read one thing from my notes. I brought it with me and that is, this is the mental health side of laughter. And this is from a website which specializes in this. It says laughter decreases stress hormones.
It increases immune cells and infection fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals. You mentioned that one.
Endorphins promote an overall sense of wellbeing and can even temporarily relieve pain. Laughter may even help you to live longer. A study in Norway found that people who have a strong sense of humor outlived those who don't laugh as much.
The difference was particularly notable for those battling cancer. End quote. I know this. I use the term comedy as therapy. And then I found out that that is actually a website. So I have to be careful because I don't want to take somebody else's idea and I certainly don't want to infringe on anyone's trademark.
But the idea of comedy being therapy is found in this verse because it says a merry heart is like medicine. A merry heart does good like medicine and a broken spirit dries the bones. So when we say it does good like a medicine, well, the science bears that out.
Not that we need science to confirm the Bible, but science does often agree with the Bible because the Bible is true. And because the Bible is true, we're going to see that in the scientific data. And the scientific data is, yeah, a merry heart actually is like a medicine.
And this is why for eons the phrase that's used is laughter is the best medicine. And we know that's a colloquialism, but it's still true. And so that was part of the talk, was talking about the physical and emotional benefits.
And then I told some stories, real-life stories of things that had happened. I'm not going to tell them on the show unless you want me to, but there were two very personal stories that I got permission to share where people in my life had gone through some tragedies and God allowed me the opportunity to bring some merriness into the situation, not being a clown.
And I don't want anybody to think I went in with a rubber nose and was honking people on the, you know, honk, honk. It wasn't that kind of humor, but by sitting and telling stories, by sitting and talking, by sitting and simply sharing life with these people, God was able to lift their countenance in a time where their spirits were absolutely broken.
And so, yeah.
Yeah, and I think people should go, I'm encouraging, go and listen to the full message because it will benefit you. But you like to have fun, right? Obviously.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you got known for that, but yet I've listened to your sermons. They're very serious. You do debates. I've listened to some of your, like, okay, let's be clear. You've done some debates that were purely for fun.
So you did a debate on whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. The thing that actually made that one so funny is how serious you both took it. Like there was, the lack of humor is what made that one funny.
And then you did, you ended up doing a debate where you're talking serious issues, but you guys had so much fun with it that it was enjoyable to hear. And yet you communicated what you believed, both of you.
I guess he was dressed as a wrestler and you were the king of millennialism.
You reminded me about the Die Hard one, because I really, I didn't count that one, but I'm going to start. Because I said I have done five public debates. I've actually done six because Die Hard counts.
But I've debated infant baptism twice, once with a Presbyterian and once, well, actually both times was with a Presbyterian. I've debated now the pre-tribulation rapture with Spencer. I've debated post-millennialism with Doug Wilson.
But that one was a short debate. That one's hard. That was like a mini debate, so maybe say four and a half. And I also have done a debate on the Sabbath, on my understanding of the Sabbath. I'm not a Sabbatarian, so I took a position opposing the Sabbatarian position.
Sunday is the Christian Sabbath was the position my opponent took. That one was very serious. I was talking to my wife about that today. I spent three months preparing for that. Like all of my extra study time that wasn't sermon prep or whatever was devoted to studying the Sabbath, and I really dove into that.
And so that one is very, very serious. But, yeah, the king of the amillennialists brought me into that dispensational debate. I never intended to debate eschatology ever, and it happened.
But the first debate I found out actually when I had you on here, when we had that joint one with Greg, right, from Dead Man Walking Podcast, and you mentioned the debate, I went out and watched it, and that was a great debate, very serious debate.
And there are some people who think if you're going to be a pastor, if you're going to want to be taken serious, you can't joke around, you can't use humor, at least not publicly. If you do it, you've got to hide it away.
I kind of know the answer to this question, but for the audience's sake, do you agree with that kind of thinking?
No.
I will say this. I do have sometimes a little bit that I have to overcome. If people have only seen me in the bowtie, if they've only seen me in the videos and they don't see, that's why I'm pretty prolific in putting out as much as I can of the other stuff too so that they understand, okay, I'm playing a role when I'm making jokes, and I'm enjoying that, it's fun, but there's a serious side too.
And so there is a danger that someone could think that you're just a jester, just a clown, and so I'm careful with that. And I talked about that in the thing too. A man who cannot be serious cannot be trusted.
And so if you only know how to joke, if everything's a joke and you can't ever suck it up and get serious, then I think that's a problem. We have to be able to have a moment where we can be serious. But as G .K. Chesterton said, serious is not the opposite of funny.
Funny is the opposite of not funny. And so you can be serious and still have a light in the mood. I mean, when R .C. Sproul said, what's wrong with you people? There's a sense in which he was very, very serious, but it was also very, very funny.
And so there's that part too.
I remember being at an event with Paul Washer, and he said something and everyone started clapping, and he just looked at us, you know, why are you clapping? That was about you. The line that he's well known for in a totally different context, and everyone burst out laughing.
And it was funny because you just see this little smirk, because I was like in the third row, and you just see this little smirk from him. And he knew it.
He knew what he did.
But it worked. It was effective. And so I don't think we need to avoid it completely, as some try to argue. Like, you don't have to be completely stoic at the pulpit. But you're right if you have people that can't be taken serious.
I mean, look, I know Ray Comfort is an example. The guy jokes all the time. Like, you think he's almost never serious if you get to know him. I mean, he's just, he is joking about everything. He'll turn everything into a joke.
And yet he's intensely serious when it comes to the Gospel. And so when you get to, when you know him, you realize, literally, he does everything to him. Like, we're driving down the street, and he just points to the Popeye's chicken, and he goes, hey, that must be a Catholic place.
And I'm like, why? He goes, because it says, Pope, yes. And now every time I pass a Popeye's chicken, and folks, I'm sorry, but now every time you pass a Popeye's chicken, you're going to see it actually says, Pope, yes.
But it's like, his mind is so quick with things like that. And yet no one accuses him of not being serious.
Why?
Because you see him sharing the Gospel so much, kind of like you said. He puts out so much serious content that people don't know the amount of joking he actually does. You're very much that same way.
I didn't really know you before the Open Air Theology Conference last year. That's where we first met, and it was interesting because the way, even though I had seen your videos, I didn't realize who you were.
Because I remember you showed me a video, and I was like, oh, wait, that's, you're that guy.
I'll never forget what you said to James White.
Oh, no.
Because James White said, I knew Keith before he was famous, and you said, I didn't know he was famous. And I was like, that was great because you weren't trying to be a jerk, but it was like in that moment I got brought down a peg.
I was like, okay, yeah, that's so funny, and you didn't mean it in a mean way. James was like, I knew him before he was famous, and you said, I didn't know he was famous. I always say being famous is like being a lady or being important.
If you have to tell people you are, you're probably not.
Yeah.
So forgive me again.
No, no, again, I wasn't offended. It was one of those moments where I was like, yeah, yeah, that's funny. That was funny how that worked out.
I just didn't know really much about you other than I realized after that, after that incident, you showed me the video. It's like, okay, but there was the, I just saw you and James back and forth on Twitter, and I forget what it was, but there was some joke you cracked, and I was actually kind of defensive for James White, and then James kind of put me in my place to be like, no, no, I know, Keith.
It was, you were, it sounded about wearing like, you know, the sweater or something, and I forget now.
Oh, yeah, his Coogee sweaters, man. It looks like Bill Cosby.
And so it was, but, you know, that is something on social media that I do think we have to be careful because, you know, when you type, there's a big difference between written form and verbal form, and I'll even emphasize it a different way.
There's a difference. You and I are talking right now. We can make jokes, and we understand it's a joke. There's a big difference when, say, doing open-air evangelism, where I'm having to raise my voice.
One of the things, the reason I make fun of myself so much in evangelism is because I discovered a lot of humor is voice inflection, which is hard to do when you're raising your voice, and people don't get the joke because they can't hear the inflection, so they read into it the very same way that people read into text messages, and so what I ended up doing was making fun of myself because I discovered when you make fun of yourself, everybody gets it as a joke.
So, but in written form, people get themselves, okay, me, I get myself in trouble. I tell jokes, and people don't perceive it as a joke. As a pastor, I mean, can you, do you have, like, some warnings with the use of humor?
Is there places, like I'm kind of hinting of with written form, are there places where we shouldn't use humor? Are there times we shouldn't use humor? Are there types of humor we shouldn't use? Because I want to ask this question specifically because I'm thinking back to your message, and you mentioned one of the two stories.
One of those stories has someone who had a very serious issue in life, a loss, a great loss, and that's not when people would think to use humor, and yet it was really effective in that case. So are there times, that'd be a time people say you shouldn't use humor.
So what should be our guidelines with humor? When should we, when shouldn't we? And granted, it's not always going to be a clear cut and dry, but are there times that maybe you should stay away, and are there guidelines of when it's too much, when it's too far?
Well, let me just speak real quick to that issue of that. The only reason why in that situation that it worked the way that it did is because I had an already existing relationship with that person that just like you just said, if you know Ray Comfort, you know he jokes all the time.
This was my fellow elder who had gone through this tragedy, and he and I, we talk two or three times a week, sometimes an hour to an hour and a half at a time. We have so many inside jokes. We have so many things that are already built into that relationship that when he and I are sitting there and he's just come sit and talk with me, come and be with me as I go through this, as I process this loss, that's why it worked.
Sometimes the relationship has to be there. Like you said, on social media, I joke with James White a lot because I have an existing relationship with him. I joke with Leighton Flowers. Even though we don't have a great relationship, we have enough of a relationship that he and I did a funny video together, and I now I can make a joke about him that if somebody else made that joke, he might get offended, but he knows my heart.
He knows I'm not really calling him out or I'm not really saying he's a false teacher or something like that. So he and I have a relationship, and I think relationship adds to your ability to bring humor into things.
I think if you don't know someone, they might consider it crass. Let me tell you a quick story. I think this will really make this make sense. One of my favorite comedians is Nate Bargatze. He's a very clean comedian, and his father was a magician, which I love because I used to be a professional magician, and Nate Bargatze's father was a magician.
Well, they were celebrating his 50th anniversary as a magician or something, so they asked Nate to come in and do his stand-up act for his father's birthday. Well, Nate came in, and nobody said, this guy's a comedian.
They just said, come in and do your act, and nobody announced it. Nobody said, now his son, Nate, the comedian, he just came up, and they handed him a microphone, and they said, do your act. He said, if you don't know someone's doing comedy, it just sounds like a really mean speech, and that phrase stuck with me.
If somebody doesn't know who you are, if somebody didn't know my heart, they might think I really hate Methodists. They might think that I really hate dispensationalists. Yeah, exactly. I love my dispensationalist friends.
So when I tease you guys about your charts or when I tease you about the rapture because I disagree, that doesn't mean one. Part of me hopes you're right. Some of these things we disagree about, but I don't think it's that big of a deal, and that's what makes the humor work is because guys like you know.
I made a joke about dispensationalists one time, and I got so many people angry with me because they don't know me.
I laugh the hardest when you make fun of the dispensationalists.
It's like the one where we did at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Where you have the dispensationalists disappear.
I cracked up at that. That was hilarious.
And some people get offended because they don't know me, and so I do think there is that disconnect. If you don't have a relationship with people, sometimes people can get offended, so that's right away like know your audience kind of thing.
Know who you're talking to. Second thing, when you talk about limits on comedy, the pulpit is not a place to be a clown. That's not to say that you can't use humor. Like you said, if you see a guy falling asleep or you think you've lost your people aren't listening to you, you can well-timed quip, a well-timed story or something may bring people back in, but I know people who literally try to be stand-up comedians in the pulpit, and they never get to anything serious because they're constantly trying to make the jokes.
And so I would say there's a limit there. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being winsome. There's nothing wrong with being humorous, but there is something wrong with seeking to be a clown in the pulpit, so right there would be a limitation.
And as far as limiting the content of our humor, Paul draws lines for us, and he uses the word comos in several places. The word comos is where that's actually where the word comedy comes from. Comos ode means an ode to revelry.
So comedy means basically like a revelry song or a song of revelry. But the way that Paul uses it is he always uses it in the context of crassness and vulgarness as a negative. And he says that which is comos, and sometimes translated as orgies, that which is celebrating the vulgar shouldn't be something that Christians are engaging in.
And so I'm not saying we can never say anything that might be a little on the line, because I do think sometimes, like Doug Wilson, for instance, he'll get right up against that line. And some people think he crosses the line, and so we do have to consider where that is.
But we should not be, especially things like sexual jokes, that's a line that we have to be careful not to cross, making light of sinful things in a way that is gross or demeaning towards those things.
And so that's where I think there's a line there. And that's why I say when I say somebody's a clean comedian, I can listen to Nate Bargatze with my kids. I don't have to worry about anything he's going to say.
I don't have to worry about any curse words. None of that's there. And so that's the line.
I was thinking as you're talking with having that history in this situation where you're talking with the person in your church that you know well, you know, I thought there was a time where I was slipping into real depression.
Just something that had happened in life that just, I've been counseling enough, I knew, reached out to a friend of mine, Matt Slick, and Matt literally just starts, Matt just starts insulting me. And I mean, just one after another, and then I started laughing.
And we're just all of a sudden at one point, we're just going back forth, having a good time. He's insulting me left and right. And he goes, you feel better now? And it's, I realized like he literally, he ends up, we joke about it today.
He goes, Hey, if you're, if you're ever feeling down, just give me a call. I will insult you till you get over it. But it's similar thing. It's like, because we have that relationship, that humor that we've built up over years can actually be used as good medicine, as good counsel, where you're not really dealing with the hardship of the situation.
Because when, what are you doing? If you continue talking about the thing that is getting you upset, you're going to continue to be upset. So what does this do? It totally just changes the conversation to sound completely different now.
And I think that is so helpful. And yet a lot of people, they don't think to do it. And I do think though, that they're, like you said, coarse jesting. And I'll be curious what your interpretation is on this, because I remember my first church that I was at, there was a guy who thought coarse jesting was any kind of joking around whatsoever.
If you made any joke, that was a sin. It caused me to do some study in the passage. I came to the conclusion he was wrong, but I first want to hear what your thought is when in Ephesians 5, he's going through that.
Is coarse jesting, like is any kind of joking a sin? Is that what that's talking about?
But no, you're right. Ephesians 5 is one of the passages that I looked at when I was preparing for my time in Pensacola. And it's in the message that I mentioned that it says either filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not convenient.
That's the King James. It doesn't say coarse, King James just says, nor jesting, which are not convenient. And people will say, well, see the Bible condemns all jesting, but it doesn't. And the way that we know that is by context.
The context of Ephesians 5 is the context of fornication, uncleanness, covetousness. It's the context of filthiness, foolish talking, and those things which would involve the vulgar. And this is why modern translations translate it as crude jesting.
The ESV says crude joking. And the Laonida, which is, for those who don't know, that's a Greek lexicon, Laonida says coarse jesting, which involves vulgar expressions and indecent content. And so even the lexicon defines this word, not just as jesting in general.
Like you said, if I poke you or you poke me with a little joke, it's coarse or lewd or anything that would be filthy or unwholesome. And so as we say, is there a line? Absolutely. Do teenage boys often cross that line?
Yes. Do grown men in locker rooms often cross that line? Yes. But we know where the line is and we know when we've crossed it because we normally look around like this, like we know we've crossed it, right?
Like, okay. And as a pastor, here's the fun part. As a pastor, when people find out I'm a pastor, oftentimes, and you may have experienced this, Andrew, somebody finds out you're a minister evangelist, as soon as they find that out, they apologize to you.
They'll say, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to.
I hope I didn't offend you because I said a joke or because I said something. It's like, no, you didn't offend me, right? I'm not the one going to hell.
You know, it's funny you say that because that's actually, many years ago, when I used to do the secular work, get to a job site, one thing I used to do when I started a new job was I would evangelize everybody.
Right out the gate, I want everyone to know I'm a Christian. I want them to hear the gospel. But you know, I said to someone, there's a second benefit of doing that because when everyone gets together and tells the jokes, they usually will apologize and stop midway through because I'm in the room.
Like, so I did a lot of running and I would run with a bunch of guys. And literally this one guy would go, hey, I got a great joke, but I'll wait till Andrew takes off because we knew like there was a spot, we all ran at different speeds.
And so we would get to this park, we'd run to the park, and then we'd all take off at different, kind of the whole big group would break into smaller groups. And so this one guy would always be like, I'll wait till we get to the park where Andrew takes off.
Right. It was great. Now I didn't have to hear it. There is so much that like those sexual innuendos that are just, they're right on the line. And to me, I'll say this, and this is the thing that I think for Christians, I had this happen last week.
There was a guy that I know he was retiring from his job. He plays golf. And so one of the group was going to go, we all pitched him money. The guy's like, so I was going to send an email saying, Hey, Bill's taken care of.
I basically said, he's going to get some balls for Bob. Well, I had a guy, he's 60 some years old. He's like laughing at, I'm like, I didn't even realize what I said. He goes, oh, that's right. You don't have third grade humor like me, but it didn't even dawn on me how he was going to interpret that.
Right. Yeah. I'm like, just going like, yeah, we were talking about golf things. Like I just was being quick with an issue, a quick email out. And it hit me this week, like some of these things that the world, like they hear it and they can't stop laughing.
They think it's like, it's childish humor. And as Christians, we don't even recognize it because we're so far past the pettiness, the, you know, the small, it's really, it is third grade humor, right?
The potty jokes. But that actually gets into something else I wanted to ask you about, because I've noticed a change in humor in the last couple of decades. I think good comedy is dead. I really believe Barack Obama killed it, but well, you're laughing.
Because of two things. One, you couldn't, you know, he would, he, when he was president, you could not make fun of him. It wasn't a lot. Like they had this like edict where he was the first president where they have the roast and it's like, you can't laugh.
You can't make fun of him. There were certain things you could say, but he like, he actually said, this is, you can't do this. And like, where that was always, presidents always got made fun of on late night TV.
It actually changed some of comedy where now what do you see? You have people that they say something that where they make fun of a person or a group of people by something that's a little bit true because all humor has some truth in it.
And it's like, Oh no, you can't do any of that anymore. So we went from, I mean, good like red skeleton and people like that, Bill Cosby. And you mentioned Bill Cosby that used to listen to Bill Cosby.
I mean, he had some humor that you had to think through. We went from that to a humor that's just all about sexual innuendos and bathroom jokes to where now it's like, you can't make fun of anybody in humor.
Like do you see the downgrade of humor and as Christians, how can we approach comedy?
Well, I think humor has changed. And I would agree with you that there is a type of humor that has taken off. And I mean, you can go back even into the eighties and nineties where a certain type of tremendously crass humor has taken off.
And it's the kind of thing that you don't even want to sit and listen to much less have your children exposed to, or have someone that you wouldn't listen to it with your mom in the room. Right. Cause yeah, that would be awkward.
So obviously that's there. I think though what has changed and this is from a comedian. I don't know if it's fair to call myself a comedian. I call myself a humorist, right? I've had an opera. I think after this much, I can call myself a humorist.
I've done a little standup comedy. Now I've written for a satire magazine. I've got a little bit underneath my belt. I can call myself a humorist, right? At this point, I could say humor has changed and here's what has changed in my estimation.
Humor used to be about, there were jokes that people told or there were observations that people made. And now it's moved from that to more of a, more of a, it's almost like comedy has a, like everything that liberalism touches.
It's like comedy has become a vehicle for the, for the, what's the word I'm looking for? I want to make sure I say it right. The message, right? Everything has a message, right? And so it's not just, we can't just make fun of things anymore.
We can't just talk about things anymore because now if a person says something or if a person does something, they'll get canceled if they're, if it's not in line with the message, right? And there's this message.
Like I heard a comedian today, I would just happen to be flipping through my phone and a comedian came up, never seen him before. First thing he says was my daughter came to me recently. She said she had something serious to talk about.
What do you want to talk to me about? I'm dating a girl. And the whole audience was on there. They were just waiting. How is his father going to respond, right? How's the father going to respond to this girl?
His daughter's, you know, obviously she's gay. She's dating a girl. And the father says, and I told her, I'm going to love her no matter who she dates. I'm going to love her no matter who she's married to or whatever.
And the audience erupted. Yay. You know, you're just the best. If it would have went the other way, if he would have responded and said, you know, that's wrong. The audience he had never done stand up again, at least not in any kind of secular position, because everything has to be in line with the message.
And I know that's a little different than what you were talking about, but I think that also has changed humor.
I mean,.
Look at probably the most well-known secular comedian in the world is Dave Chappelle. He says something against transgender people within not long after he has to come out and say, you know, I love transgender.
I have transgender friends and he had to, he had to correct it because even he's not immune to the things that, to the message, the message is that. So I know it's a little different than what you were talking about, but it has, it's, it's changed a lot.
Because I talked about that. It's, you know, there is that aspect where the modern humor is just really gone and.
Can't talk, can't talk about Barack Obama. Can't talk about this.
And I see now I will say as a Christian, I have certain limits of what I think we could do in humor.
I do not make fun of Jesus Christ.
Ain't going to happen.
Sure.
But I got one other that people don't think about. You will never hear me make a joke about my wife. My wife is never the butt of a joke. I'll make myself the butt of a joke. No problem. I will never make my bride a butt of a joke.
Because what does the marriage represent? It represents Christ in the church. Would I, would I want Christ in, you know, making the church a butt of a joke? Because of the symbolism of it, I personally, not saying what you, anyone else should do, but personally I don't make fun of Christ and I won't make fun of my wife.
For me as a Christian, that's a limit I have. I mean, obviously the coarse jesting, you know, the sexual innuendos, things like that. But are there any things that you have personally where it's like, you know, I have this line I won't cross over, I won't do.
I mean, obviously you don't mind making fun of latent flowers, which that was fun.
Well, it's funny you mentioned about the wife, because I want to speak to that for just a moment. I have never intended ever to harm my wife or do anything wrong. There have been times though, where I've like, I've told a story like, Hey, my wife and I, this happened to us and it might have something in it that's embarrassing that I didn't even realize was embarrassing.
Right? And so I think it's funny because this thing happened. And then later she comes to me and says, I really wish you hadn't told that story and I have to eat crow because I'm now ashamed of what I did to hurt my wife.
And so I didn't think it was embarrassing at all because it didn't register to me because I pretty much am like an open book. I don't, my wife calls me an overshare. I don't know if you know what that is, but a person who shares too much.
And so I'll tell people, you know, yeah, I, like one time, here's a good story. One time I fell out of the shower. Okay. I was showering, my foot slipped and I fell out of the shower. I fell on the, on the ground.
Now that's a terrible thing to visualize. I'm not asking anybody to visualize it, but it happened on a Sunday morning before church. So I walked into church and I was telling people, yeah, I fell out of the shower.
I fell out of the shower this morning. I can't believe it. You know? And my wife comes up to me. She goes, why are you telling people this? The worst visual that you can get on a Sunday before you start preaching.
And I was just thinking about it. Cause I hurt, you know, like when I hit the ground, it hurt. Like I slipped in the tub, I fell and it hurt, but the, I was just not smart enough to feel like that did not need to be told.
And see, I just told it to your listeners.
Well,.
The only thing that I could think of that would hurt more would be paying full price for a MyPillow. Like if you had to pay full price for a MyPillow, that would hurt. So what you should do is, I mean, the pillow should be nice and soft along with your towels.
And therefore what I think you should do is not pay full price. If you want to get yourself a good night's sleep and at the same time support striving for eternity, go to MyPillow .com, get yourself a nice soft pillow to lay your head on or a nice absorbent towel that they have on sale right now and use the promo code SFE.
It stands for striving for eternity. So that when you put your head down on the pillow, yeah, it won't hurt like what happened to Pastor Keith just there. So let me ask, I mean, the thing is when we say things, sometimes we're not always aware.
I'll embarrass myself a bit. We had a guy in church. I was a pastor. Guy got saved. His wife was not. Now you just have to understand something about his wife. His wife was like this very A-type personality.
She was, you know, she would always excel to be in charge of anything she touched type of person. I wouldn't let her become a member of the church. She was very upset with me because, well, she wasn't saved.
And it was kind of interesting. I found out this was like two years later after they left the church, I found this out that some of the ladies said that in the lady's Bible study, she was so upset. She told the ladies that not only was she going to be a member, but she had said within two years, I'm going to be the pastor of this church.
And the ladies just, they knew not to laugh at her, but they were just like, yeah, that's not going to happen. Not ever. And so, but her husband and I were out. We're in a different state. The phone rings.
I'm in the front seat of the car and his phone was charging and I see it's his wife. And I'm like, I go to hand it and, but he didn't want it to be unplugged. So he's like, well, you just answer it. I go, well, can your wife take a joke?
And he goes, oh yeah. I'm like, no, seriously, because if I do what I'm going to do and she can't take a joke, it's going to be really bad. And he goes, oh yeah, no, it's not a problem. So I answered the phone.
I said, with a Scottish accent, I said, this is officer O'Malley. Can I help you? We, you know, and she, so she said, I said, well, we have your husband here. We have him under arrest and she just didn't find it funny at all.
Now I gave you a little bit of her background. Well, she thought she could use that against me. So I saw her later that night when we ended up having a gathering and I went and apologized. I asked her forgiveness and she goes, she goes, no, you owe me.
And I was like, no, actually I asked your forgiveness, try to repair the relationship. But she goes, no, you have to let me be a member now. And so she was, this is her, her way, right? She's going to use this against me.
And I looked at her, I said, I'm not going to give her a name, but I just said, look, I've done all that I have the responsibility to do. I asked your forgiveness and now it's between you and God. And so of course the rest of the ride home and the rest of the evening, my wonderful bride was letting me know that you got to stop joking around so much because you get yourself in trouble sometimes.
And that time I did. So I think there are times there's sometimes that, you know, like with what my wife's helped me is, and this kind of goes back to something you said earlier is you got to know the person.
Don't just joke with somebody that you don't know. So I try and I try to get to know someone before I start making jokes because I think what you said earlier is a really, really important thing is you got to have that relationship.
So we've been mostly serious in a episode about humor.
No, because here's the thing. Humor is serious business. It can be serious business. I said this in Pensacola, humor can be one of the most powerful ways that you get your point across. It can be one of the most powerful ways to get people to remember something.
And it can be the, one of the most, one of the best ways to stab at and rebuke something is to rebuke it with a humor. And again, some people don't realize in all the humor that I give about big Eva and all the humor I give about the Methodist and all the humor I give, even about the Presbyterians are superior theology.
What is the, what's the joke? The joke is that all of us have something that we need to consider. I mean, do we really think we are superior? And some people do. I've got people, they really think they're superior.
I've got, I know, you know, and the Methodist, I mean, I said this in Pensacola, why do I joke about Methodist? Cause they're so, their denomination has in a way become a joke and not all the Methodist, but this subsect of far left leaning Methodists, which I get messages.
And here's the thing. I get messages from Methodists that say, Hey, I'm a Methodist and I love you. Cause what you're talking about is the same problems I have within my denomination. You're talking about the people that we all know are there.
And so it's a way to point out something and take a stab at something that needs to be poked. Yeah.
I was just glad that when you did one on the different denominations with martial arts, that you saw that the superior theology, the real superior theology of dispensationalism had the superior martial art of jujitsu.
I was glad for that.
No, it didn't work that way.
Krav Maga is great. I used to teach it.
So I'm pretty proud of it. Breaking that down. I mean, there was some humor in there, right? Because what is dispensationalism known for? Israel. So you brought up the Israeli martial art, right? So the joke there folks is I did, when I saw that the first time I did mention to you that I was glad that you admitted, cause you used the Presbyterians with superior theology.
And I joked that at least you recognize Brazilian jujitsu is the superior martial art. And I did that for a reason, though someone didn't know that online because someone may send me a comment when I commented to you, but they didn't know your background as well.
Cause I do. So this is something that might be a little surprising to people. You have a background in martial arts, a pretty high background, no less.
I have a fifth degree black belt in Shotokan karate. And I have a second degree black belt in modern Arnis, which is a Filipino stick fighting art. And I've been in karate for 30 years.
And so when people, it was an interesting thing because it's something where when you and I first talked about that, you said people get surprised by that. Cause you're,.
You're a big guy.
I'm a big guy. I've always been big though. I can't, I mean, God bless my mother. You know, I was a big baby. I mean, I've always, I've just been big my whole life. I tell you, I bought beer on an eighth grade field trip just to prove to the other boys that I could do it.
I had a full mustache. I was at Kennedy space center on a field trip and there was a stand that sold beer. I said, I bet you I can walk over there and they won't card me. And the guy's like, Oh no, they're going to card you.
Nope. I walked over there. I bought a beer and proved that I could do it. So I've looked, I have looked like I was 25 ever since I was a kid.
Okay. So you do realize the question that the audience wants to know now, did you drink it?
We all did so that no one could tell on anyone else. We all shared it. It's like group of boys all took a sip so that none of us could tell on the other. Cause we'd all have to set, you know, and I didn't get saved until I was 19.
So before anybody brings it,.
Oh, that's funny. Well, I appreciate you coming on. I thought your message was very refreshing. Cause I, to be honest, I had never in my life heard a theology of comedy. So the title alone got my attention.
And a lot of what you said is stuff that I teach in ambassador evangelism. And I have had people that want me to take that out of the ambassador evangelism. They don't think it's appropriate to teach how to use humor when evangelizing.
And yet I think as you say, it's, I just, I've always said, it's a powerful weapon. It's a powerful weapon at disarming someone. And I think that you broke down in a theological way, how humor and comedy works.
And so I just thought it was fabulous. And that's why I wasn't even done listening. I was about 75 of the way through when I contacted you and said, I need to get you on because it, I really, I think it's an important message people need to hear.
And so I want people to go to your Calvinist, subscribe or follow that podcast, check it out. If you were paying attention as regular listeners, you just heard an episode we did on different ministries working together.
Well, your Calvinist, if you paid real close attention, you might've heard it before where, well, you heard it when the previous episode, when we had in truth and love network, because your Calvinist is a part of that network.
And so I hope that your Calvinist is on, and you're already following that you took my instruction from last week and checked that out. So, but Keith, let me just ask if you could do anything else that you would like to share and also just how can folks get ahold of you and find out more what you're doing?
Well, Andrew, I want to just say, thank you for having me on. Thank you for the encouragement about the message that I'm glad that you heard it. And it coincided so well with what things you already were teaching.
And that makes me feel good because I'm not out to lunch. If what I'm saying is, you know, when, when a man's on an Island by himself and nobody else is saying, you got to kind of question, but to know that you were already sort of saying these things and explaining these things and the, you know, as an evangelist and seeing these things come together like that is very encouraging for me.
So I'm thankful. And again, if anybody wants to get ahold of me, you can email me directly at calvinistpodcastatgmail .com. I actually have a assistant who helps me field those emails and get back with.
You.
So if you have a question you want to ask me or have me do a podcast about, I still take requests from listeners or suggest a guest. If any church is interested in having me come that's in the Southeast area, obviously I'm limited on, I can't leave my church to go too far, but if,.
But I,.
But I have had churches talk about having me come and talk about the subject with their groups, with their men or whatever, would love to do that if anyone would like to have me. And again, you can contact me at calvinistpodcastatgmail .com or just go to calvinistpodcast .com.
It will take you directly to our YouTube page.
Well, as a listener, maybe I could put in, I would love to hear you teach on the value and benefits and superior theology of dispensationalism. It would be a great podcast for you to do.
I am still working on our bow tie dialogue. I haven't forgotten. I've been so jammed with everything else going on, but if I can get you and Michael Black and Ian and a few of the other guys that have already agreed to be on, I would love to pick your brain and be able to hear your thoughts on things that I want to make sure people understand correctly about dispensationalism.
So I look forward to that.
Yeah. And I'll close out just by saying your bow tie dialogues were something that really started with the Presbyterians, the bow tie that you do in the comedy of the superior theology. But what he does there, folks, is he actually gets people of a different denomination in his own or different views theologically of his own, and actually lets them talk and he just asks them questions.
I have found it extremely valuable, learned things about each of the groups he's done so far. And it's not like, oh, let me, let me knock at you, but it's actually just having a, here's someone that's asking genuine questions to learn more about a different denomination or school of thinking.
So check that one out as well. You will learn a lot. So next week we should return to the series that we're doing of what is a pastor. So we'll get back to that. We're going to be digging into the topics of the pastor and his qualifications.
What are the proper qualifications for a pastor that will be next week's episode. So look forward to that. And until then, that's a wrap.
This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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