It's Just a Joke

Something has bothered me ever since I was little, and I never knew why until I wrote it out, and it all sort of made sense to me. 

When people say jokes or just silly things, using God or the Bible as a base for it. 

I usually laugh along with everyone else.

But still... It has always bothered me, and I have only just recently found out why.

There is a certain song that is very beautiful, and has deep lyrics, and it means a lot to me personally. 

One day, it was stuck in my head. 

What I normally do when a song is stuck in my head is sing one part of it over and over without even thinking. It got to a point where I was so tired of it being stuck in my head that I "innocently" started singing one part of it in silly, exaggerated voices.

This was several months ago, but now, whenever I hear that song, all I can think of is it being sung in my silly voices.

Now, this song is nowhere near as important or sacred as the Bible, but you get the memo. 

The song lost some of it's meaning to me because I made light of it, and the same thing can happen with God and the Bible. 

When we make jokes about the Bible, we will never be able to think about it without thinking of the joke that is attached to that certain part in our brains, making it seem silly and unimportant in our minds. 

It has been tarnished...defiled, in a way.

In Bible times, you not only had to cleanse your mind to enter the temple, but you also had to literally bathe your body. As to not defile anything in relation to God, with your thoughts or even your appearance.

The Jews were not even allowed to speak the name of God as to hold its reverence. 

Nowadays, professed Christians use the name of God as a form of exclamation, and the base for jokes.

If we, as Christians cannot take the Gospel seriously, then how do we expect people that we are trying to witness to to take it seriously? 

Please know, if you do tell "Christian jokes" I will not judge you at all. That is something you choose to do, and maybe it doesn't change anything of how you think of the Bible. So this is not a slam on anyone who does. All I am doing is asking you to think about how that will affect your mind and other's  minds before you speak. 

Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

When we show children pictures of Noah's ark that looks like this:

Then that's what they'll picture it as for a long time, if not their whole life. A tiny little boat, with animals sticking their heads out, looking at perfectly peaceful waters, and Noah looking clueless. 

That is why I love what Ken Ham is doing by building a life-sized ark to show people what it actually looked like, and to give people a new image of it in their minds.

1 Peter 3:15-

"But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect..."

Hebrews 12:28b

"...and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe..."