A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. -Proverbs 15:13
All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. -Proverbs 15:15
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. –Proverbs 17:22
Laughter isn’t all bad. I know that we are warned to not join in the laughter of fools, to laugh at the folly of this world, and so on. But there is a place for a good hearty laugh.
Charles Spurgeon (one of my heroes, in case you’re new here and don’t know this obvious fact) often spoke of the use of laughter. In his classic Lectures to My Students, he told young preachers:
It is a sort of tradition of the fathers that it is wrong to laugh on Sundays. The eleventh commandment is, that we are to love one another: and then, according to some people, the twelfth is, “Thou shalt pall a long face on Sunday.” I must confess that I would rather hear people: laugh than I would see them asleep in the house of God; and I would rather get the truth into them through the medium of ridicule than I would have it neglected, or leave the people to perish through lack of reception of the message. I do believe, in my heart, that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to laugh is the better thing of the two...
In the introduction to the publication of his sermons, he mentioned that one might find in these an occasional remark that would make one smile. And, speaking of himself, he says: he is not quite sure about a smile being a sin, and, at any rate, he thinks it less a crime to cause a momentary laughter than a half hour’s profound slumber.
And one biography of the famed preacher speaks of his occasional use of humor in the pulpit, saying: To one who objected to some humorous expression to which he had given utterance while preaching, he replied, “If you had known how many others I kept back, you would not have found fault with that one, but you would have commended me for the restraint I had exercised.”
So, in light of the positive nature of a good wholesome laugh, I simply offer you a couple of recent additions to some of my favorite sources of humor. I hope it makes your heart glad…
All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. -Proverbs 15:15
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. –Proverbs 17:22
Laughter isn’t all bad. I know that we are warned to not join in the laughter of fools, to laugh at the folly of this world, and so on. But there is a place for a good hearty laugh.
Charles Spurgeon (one of my heroes, in case you’re new here and don’t know this obvious fact) often spoke of the use of laughter. In his classic Lectures to My Students, he told young preachers:
It is a sort of tradition of the fathers that it is wrong to laugh on Sundays. The eleventh commandment is, that we are to love one another: and then, according to some people, the twelfth is, “Thou shalt pall a long face on Sunday.” I must confess that I would rather hear people: laugh than I would see them asleep in the house of God; and I would rather get the truth into them through the medium of ridicule than I would have it neglected, or leave the people to perish through lack of reception of the message. I do believe, in my heart, that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to laugh is the better thing of the two...
In the introduction to the publication of his sermons, he mentioned that one might find in these an occasional remark that would make one smile. And, speaking of himself, he says: he is not quite sure about a smile being a sin, and, at any rate, he thinks it less a crime to cause a momentary laughter than a half hour’s profound slumber.
And one biography of the famed preacher speaks of his occasional use of humor in the pulpit, saying: To one who objected to some humorous expression to which he had given utterance while preaching, he replied, “If you had known how many others I kept back, you would not have found fault with that one, but you would have commended me for the restraint I had exercised.”
So, in light of the positive nature of a good wholesome laugh, I simply offer you a couple of recent additions to some of my favorite sources of humor. I hope it makes your heart glad…
No comments:
Post a Comment