Stand Up Preaching

Comedians and preachers both look at the world from an unusual angle. Comics read everyday life for its absurdities and turn them into laughter, while preachers, through a theological lens, look for God at work in ordinary life. That outlook lets preachers speak hope into despair, understand the world in terms of God's justice, and proclaim new life arising from death.

The book examines stand-up comedy as a cultural phenomenon alongside theories of humor, asking what preachers can learn from both. Karl N. Jacobson and Rolf A. Jacobson aim to help preachers grow in their craft and offer a way of reading Scripture, both for its humor and through the lens humor provides. Its approaches show how the Bible itself can be funny and how humor can be brought into the text.

The authors bring preaching into conversation with the comedic passages of the Bible and with the theological dimensions of comedy, hoping to give preaching new vitality. As a serious study of humor and laughter in Scripture, the book considers what it means to think of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as filled with laughter.

Readers are invited to marvel at and smile through biblical examples of God's laughter, reflecting on what these mean for God's people, for the life of faith, and for preaching to a congregation.