# Is Sarcasm a Sin? Not in Itself: What the Bible Says About Sarcasm Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/is-sarcasm-a-sin-in-the-eyes-of-god/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2024-09-19 Updated: 2026-10-26 Not in itself. The Bible never uses the word, and it records sarcasm from Elijah (1 Kings 18:27), from Job (Job 12:2) and from Paul (1 Corinthians 4:8). What it condemns is mockery that aims to shame or wound, and the Catholic Catechism names "irony aimed at disparaging someone" as a sin. The word gives its own warning. Sarcasm comes from a Greek verb meaning "to strip off the flesh," as dogs tear meat. Scripture is not afraid of a sharp tongue; prophets and apostles used one. What it asks is where the words are aimed, and whether they leave the hearer torn or built up. Paul's test fits in a line: our words should be "good for building up," spoken "that it may give grace to those who hear" (Ephesians 4:29). ## Is sarcasm a sin in the Bible? The English word is younger than the Bible. It comes through Latin from the Greek *sarkasmos*, a taunt or sneer, from the verb *sarkazein*, literally "to strip off the flesh," as dogs tear meat; it entered English in the 1570s. Scripture speaks instead of mocking, scoffing and derision. The New Testament's rules for speech ask whether words build up the hearer and what they show of the speaker's heart. "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear" (Ephesians 4:29). "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another" (Ephesians 4:31–32). "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt" (Colossians 4:6). James objects to [a tongue](https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-controlling-your-tongue/) that blesses God and then curses "people who are made in the likeness of God" (James 3:9–10). Jesus said that "out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45), and that "on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak" (Matthew 12:36). ## Examples of sarcasm in the Bible The best-known example is Elijah on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal had called on their god from morning until noon with no answer, and "at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, '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 Kings 18:27). Isaiah uses the same kind of irony against idol-makers: a man burns half a log to roast his meat and warm himself, "and the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it" (Isaiah 44:16–17). Job answers his friends, who keep explaining his suffering to him, with "No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you" (Job 12:2). Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, which thought highly of its own wisdom: "Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings!" and "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ" (1 Corinthians 4:8, 10). In his second letter he wrote, "For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves!" and "Forgive me this wrong!" of his refusal to take their money (2 Corinthians 11:19; 12:13). Scripture also records sarcasm it does not approve. When David danced before the ark, his wife Michal met him with "How the king of Israel honored himself today" (2 Samuel 6:20), and David rejected the rebuke. ## Did Jesus use sarcasm? Several of his sayings are ironic. To Pharisees who set aside God's law for their own customs he said, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!" (Mark 7:9). When a crowd picked up stones, he asked, "I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?" (John 10:32). Told that Herod wanted to kill him, he replied that he must go on his way, "for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem" (Luke 13:33). Others are exaggeration: "You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!" (Matthew 23:24), or the log and the speck (Matthew 7:3–5). Whether these count as sarcasm, irony or hyperbole depends on how narrowly the words are defined. His sharpest sayings are aimed at religious leaders and at hypocrisy, as in the woes of Matthew 23. The Gospels also record sarcasm used against Jesus. Soldiers put a purple cloak and a crown of thorns on him and saluted him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" (Mark 15:17–18). At the cross the chief priests said, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe" (Mark 15:31–32). The scene echoes Psalm 22: "All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads" (Psalm 22:7). ## Is God sarcastic? When God answers Job out of the whirlwind, he asks where Job was when the earth was founded and then says, "You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!" (Job 38:21). Psalm 2 says of the rulers who plot against the Lord and his anointed, "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision" (Psalm 2:4). In both passages the target is human pride set against God. ## When is sarcasm a sin? Proverbs warns against cruelty dressed as humor: "Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, 'I am only joking!'" (Proverbs 26:18–19). Its word for the habitual mocker is *lēṣ*, usually translated "scoffer": "'Scoffer' is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride" (Proverbs 21:24), and "Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease" (Proverbs 22:10). Psalm 1 counts it a blessing not to sit "in the seat of scoffers." Jesus warned that "whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire" (Matthew 5:22). Christian teachers have weighed mockery by what the mocker means to do. Thomas Aquinas treated it, under the name of derision, as a sin of its own. Sins of speech, he wrote, "should be weighed chiefly by the intention of the speaker," and "the derider intends to shame the person he derides." Making fun of a small defect in jest is a venial sin; treating a person as so contemptible that his misfortune is a joke is a mortal one (*Summa Theologiae* II-II, question 75). The Catechism of the Catholic Church carries the same line: boasting is an offense against truth, it says, and "so is irony aimed at disparaging someone by maliciously caricaturing some aspect of his behavior" (paragraph 2481). Protestants drew the line too. The Westminster Larger Catechism lists "scoffing, reviling, rash, harsh, and partial censuring" and "scornful contempt" among the sins forbidden by the ninth commandment, along with "speaking the truth unseasonably, or maliciously to a wrong end" (question 145). ## Is irony a sin? No, not in itself. Irony, saying the reverse of what is meant, runs through Scripture, from Elijah to Paul. The Catechism's paragraph 2481 condemns irony only when it is "aimed at disparaging someone," and names the malicious caricature as the fault. Aquinas used the word "irony" in an older sense, for belittling oneself falsely, and discussed it as a sin against truth (*Summa Theologiae* II-II, question 113); that is a different thing from sarcasm. ## Sarcasm, humor and "crude joking" Scripture makes room for [laughter](https://christianpure.com/learn/laughter-in-the-bible/): Ecclesiastes gives "a time to laugh" (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Paul lists "crude joking" among things that are "out of place" (Ephesians 5:4). The Greek word there is *eutrapelia*, which Aristotle had used for the virtue of wittiness. Aquinas followed Aristotle and held that there can be a virtue about play and jest, which keeps fun within reason so that it "befit the hour and the man," in a phrase he took from Cicero (*Summa Theologiae* II-II, question 168, article 2). So a Christian may laugh, and may speak sharply when the truth needs it. Paul asks only that the salt in our words keep them kind: "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt" (Colossians 4:6). --- ## Related reading - [Is gossip a sin?](https://christianpure.com/learn/is-gossip-a-sin/) - [Laughter in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/laughter-in-the-bible/) - [Bible verses about controlling your tongue](https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-controlling-your-tongue/) --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). You may quote it and link to it. 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