“Plenary verbal revelation requires that biblical style, as well as content, is inspired. Scripture’s inclusion of satire surely vindicates its prima facie legitimacy in Christian discourse.” 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.

I wonder if you’ve ever had this experience. You come face to face with undisguised sin—blatant, obvious, unquestionable—and paraphrase the Bible in response. Perhaps, “There go the blind leading the blind. That fall’s gonna hurt” (Matt. 15:14); or, “He sure knows how to shine the outside of the cup, but there’s a month’s worth of milk scum inside” (Luke 11:39); or, “It’s hard to watch that fool tear down her own house board by board” (Prov. 14:1). If you’ve done this enough, you’ve inevitably encountered the response, “That’s not very loving,” or even worse, “That’s not very Christlike.”

The problem here goes deeper than mere biblical literacy. In many Christian circles, there is an almost irrepressible impulse toward winsomeness—a dogged refusal to offend. As a result, any words, phrases, or tactics that are not governed by that unyielding ‘niceness’ 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.

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—to our surprise or discomfort—that the Author (and authors) of Scripture doesn’t shy away from holy mockery. Especially in the Prophets and when Jesus deals with recalcitrant sinners, we find that God often employs satire—, which might be defined as “the exposure of human vice or folly through rebuke or ridicule.”^[1] In fact, we see that Leland Ryken is right in saying, “The Bible is a thoroughly satiric book.”^[2]

In this brief essay, I want to provide a sampling of the spicy speech that we find scattered throughout God’s 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, “Thus says the Lord,” if we don’t recognize that our Lord’s words often bear the serrated edge of satire.^[3]

The Old Testament Bite

The Old Testament bristles with satire. The lowest hanging fruit may be Elijah mocking the prophets of Ba’al. He taunts: “Cry 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” (1 Ki. 18:27). This scathing sarcasm hardly needs comment, yet note that Elijah includes scatological language here—though cloaked in euphemism.^[4] These prophets believed Ba’al occupied one kind of throne; Elijah imagined him presiding over another.

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 “well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.” Therefore, God will judge them for their “adulteries and neighings, [their] lewd whorings, on the hills in the field” (Jer. 13:26–27). Yes, more staid language was available to Jeremiah, but through the vehicle of satire, Jeremiah exposes Judah’s immoral ways as bestial, no better than horses in heat. He lays bare Judah’s pastoral perversions compared with God’s moral norm.

Amazingly, when Ezekiel confronts the same spiritual prostitution of God’s people with Egypt, he manages to make the metaphor even more explicit. Speaking of Jerusalem, he declares, “She lusted after their genitals—as large as those of donkeys” (Ezek. 23:19–20 NET). And in the extended parable of Ezekiel 16, the prophet presents Israel’s sin as akin to working a street corner: Israel “spread [her] legs to every passerby” (Ezek. 16:25 NET). The chapter is hard to read, and yes, every bit of it is the inspired, uncomfortably satiric word of God.

Isaiah also levels mockery at idolaters and their idols. He notes how hard the “god-smiths” have to work at their craft (Isa. 44:9–13). How great can a god be whose maker needs a lunchbreak so he won’t 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: “Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” (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’t even move independently, let alone bear others out of hardship (Isa. 46:1–7).

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