After the Laughter

On October 7th Justin Taylor posted an interesting article on his Between Two Worlds weblog. The article is titled, “How to Train People to Laugh at Anything” (click on the title to read that blog). When you read his article you realize that the title is meant to be ironic as he writes of John Piper’s speaking engagement for the American Association of Christian Counselors held in Nashville, Tennessee on September 16, 2009. Here is how Justin Taylor opened his article:

“A few weeks ago John Piper spoke at a conference for the American Association of Christian Counselors. You should listen to the first five minutes. Piper decided to be as transparent as possible, given the audience, and to discuss some of the prevailing sins that he has struggled with his entire life. And the audience laughed uproariously. Piper was obviously perplexed and commented on how strange their reaction was.”

Justin also refers to Greg Gilbert’s article from the 9Marks blog site, which was also given a rather ironic title, “How to Train Your Church Not to Take Anything Seriously” (click on the title to read that blog). Greg Gilbert’s article had focused upon a particular aspect of the event, but one thing that would be especially important to note before I continue with my article is that many of the original comments made concerning the laughter at this event were rather harsh, suggesting that the people laughing were not Christian. Greg writes, “Some of the comments I’ve seen about it—that these counselors are being deliberately dismissive of sin, or even that they cannot possibly be Christians—are ridiculous and beyond the pale. I don’t think that’s true at all.” I would agree with that; Greg continues, “In fact, I think the reality of what happened here is enormously instructive for us.” And I also agree with that. I think that I will be adding a few more dimensions to some of the things that Greg pointed out.

Listen to the first five minutes of John Piper’s presentation here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/4216/Audio/

Dr. Piper commented (beginning at 4:09 minutes of the Desiring God audio segment), “I know that you’ve been set up for an hour and a half, maybe a little bit differently…” From piecing together from other blogs hither and yon, coupled with that comment, it would appear that several of the speakers prior to John Piper’s message told jokes to lighten up the audience prior to their talks (John Piper’s comments about the audience’s laughter were not included in the transcript of the message). As you can tell from the audio clip, John Piper opened a very serious list of some of the sins that have beset his own life, but this list was received with laughter.

Here are some of my own observations:

First, though I was disturbed by the laughter, I basically blocked it out to hear the words of a man that has been greatly used today in conveying the Word of God (so the laughter wasn’t my focus in my first hearing of the message, and for that, I’m truly thankful). The list of sins that Pastor Piper presented, however, struck an incredible chord within my own soul. Some specifics notwithstanding, every sinful point the pastor made was identical to a list I might have prepared. Does every pastor continually repent of the sins that are in many ways very similar and very common to men who are called to the pulpit, called to feed the Lord’s flock? The confession of Pastor Piper is a very sobering and important one, not only for pastors, but for congregations that they serve as well. Fellow ministers can take heart and be encouraged that they are not the only ones weeping in repentance daily before their Savior and Sovereign. Yet, equally important is that the congregation realizes that their minister struggles beneath the same sins that so easily beset them; therefore, they might, in great love, pray that much more earnestly for their beloved pastor, pleading with God to lavish grace more abundantly upon him.

The responsibility to bring forth the glory of God’s grace and the majesty, splendor and holiness of the gospel message of Christ crucified weighs so heavily upon the sinful minister saved by God’s sovereign grace that if he has never realized Paul’s words, “And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling,” while standing in the pulpit, then more than likely, he wasn’t called to a preaching ministry in the first place; that is, in my humble opinion.

Second, you just can’t get away from the laughter. It’s there; and during a sinner’s confession, which is when he is most vulnerable, it’s hard not to hear it. As Brother Greg mentioned in his blog, I don’t suggest that these people were not Christian. I believe that most of them probably were Christians; many of them, perhaps, more sincere and devout than I could ever hope to become. Yet, it is by this reality that we should recognize that it could have been you or me. It may have been you and me right there in that audience laughing at our friend, treating his vulnerable position and his sinful condition with the same tenderness and compassion as Job’s companions. Many of us sometimes tend to think, “Had it been me in the garden, I wouldn’t have…” or “Were it me at the Pavement at Pilate’s judgment seat, it wouldn’t have been me that cried ‘crucify’…” Beloved, you and I are as guilty as if we were there; for the guilt of Adam’s sin, as well as the guilt of rejecting Christ, was upon us all: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8; cf. Romans 5:12).

Third, another thing that came to my mind after listening to the introduction of Dr. Piper’s message was something that was addressed by Greg Gilbert in his article. He suggests that because the previous speakers used humor, the conferees were already conditioned to laugh. And because they were conditioned to laugh, Greg draws a parallel to what may happen in the church if humor takes a prominent place in pulpit preaching:

“Apparently the conditioning of that audience to think everything is funny took no more than a couple of days.

“How deep do you think that conditioning would be for a church who sat under a funny-man pastor every Sunday for fifteen years?” (emphasis in original)

As far as conditioning goes (and I’m no expert), but it seems that laughter, like crying, &etc., is a manifestation of an emotion. Emotions are not evil in and of themselves; neither are their manifestations. Nevertheless, the manifestations of emotions can either be appropriate or inappropriate. How odd it would be to read the gospel writer record in John 11:35 that “Jesus laughed” while the Lord Christ stood outside of Lazarus’ tomb. Equally fantastic would be if we read in Luke 24:52-53 that the disciples “worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great sorrow: and were continually in the Temple, weeping and crying before God” after seeing the risen Savior.

When our emotions do not follow the truth that has renewed our minds, it is apparent that the work of the Holy Spirit is not moving in its fullness; that’s because one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control (Galatians 5:23), which is not manifested when there is an outburst of emotion that is inappropriate or untimely. Then, we must ask ourselves, “Was the impact of the truth of sin (in this particular instance) illuminated to their souls by the teaching of the Spirit through the washing and cleansing of their minds?” That, indeed, is a very sobering question to consider.

The funny thing is (and I really didn’t mean it as a pun initially, but since I wrote it, I decided I ought to leave it in because it is pretty pun-ny), that with my ALS I’m prone to laugh or cry at things that might not be funny or sad, and a bit uncontrollably at that. This is especially sobering for me because I do not want to bring shame, controversy, or even the appearance of inappropriateness to the name of Jesus when proclaiming His truth. I truly have asked the Lord that when I am unfit to preach, teach and pastor His flock, to let me know very clearly and quickly.

Fourth (and I probably could have placed this much closer to the top of my list), as a minister, as a preacher of the gospel, and as pastor called to a congregation to teach and exemplify God’s grace, I had to ask myself, “Can I deal with such a situation with grace and humility?” Honestly (and if I could only be as transparent to write this as Pastor Piper was to preach his message), I have to confess that I could feel indignation rise in the depths of my being as the introduction continued and the laughter did not cease. I didn’t rant; and no one would have known had I not written it; yet, it was there. I do pray, that by God’s grace, that I may continue to recognize that I am the chief of sinners and the least of the Lord’s ministers, and certainly not the most eloquent of His mouthpieces to proclaim Christ crucified, buried, risen, ascended and coming again. If someone laughs, disagrees, or misunderstands something I’ve said, I pray that I may be able to handle it with as much Christ-honoring humility as John Piper.

Fifth, and perhaps the most important item of note to me, is the context with which this laughter was manifested. It just so happened that Dr. Piper was going through a list of specific sins. At Sovereign Grace Baptist Church recently, as we’ve spent Wednesday nights devotionally covering questions and answers in A Puritan’s Catechism, specifically covering such topics as the fall of man, sin, man's fallen state, the result of man’s fall, and fallen man’s hope in Christ. We have also finished a verse-by-verse exposition of Romans 1-3 in our Sunday morning worship services, going over all the details of man’s radical corruption in his fallen condition; in fact, when we studied the particular passage in Romans 1:29-31, we thoroughly, albeit painfully, examined each and every sin listed. Often, I’ve heard messages that, when they get to a list of sins such as those covered in Romans 1, some of the sins were mentioned briefly, but not every one of them was explained (and for many of the messages, having good reason, as there may not have been enough time with the content of the other issues covered, &etc., so I understand—been there, done that, bought the t-shirt). Yet, I believe that in these days, when there are those who won’t even mention sin at all in the pulpit for fear of offending the hearer, there is greater reason than ever to explain just what God’s Word says about sin. As I stated in the message that Sunday morning not long ago, we hear many people quote Romans 3:23 these days, but we hear so very few quoting Romans 1:26-32. The fall of man brought such total depravity, such complete corruption to the human condition, that when we hear about sin, it doesn’t convict us because it is so general; the general truth doesn’t penetrate us; it doesn’t have the teeth, say, that the identification of specific sins has.

Therefore, when I listened to this clip, although I don’t think that this was the case here, it did come to mind that sometimes outbursts such as laughter, may be kind of a defense mechanism in the flesh to keep us from truly coming face to face with the offense of sinful flesh before a holy God. Again, I need to repeat this: I don’t necessarily believe that, in general, these folks were putting up a defense mechanism to keep them from the horrible truth; however, the situation caused me to think that emotions do often place a hedge around our flesh to keep us from truth, and godly sorrow that leads to repentance. The flesh is filled with esteem for itself; it’s haughty. The carnal mind is at enmity with God; and the flesh lusts against the Spirit.

It seems that, more now than ever, we need to “gird up the loins of [our] mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto [us] at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13); and that we must “walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

On a final and closing note, and rather an awkward but edifying postscript following what I just wrote in the paragraph above, I do encourage you to listen to the entire message from John Piper. It is excellent.