is God sarcastic?

[StillGods]

I dont think so, but the person who spoke on Sunday inferred that God was being sarcastic in Malachi.

what are your thoughts on this please?

 

[Paidiske]

I think there are Scriptures which express sarcasm, if that's what you mean. It's a powerful rhetorical device, after all.

As to Malachi specifically, perhaps you could indicate which passage you're talking about?

 

[Brother-Mike]

I would say almost all of God’s response to Job is sarcastic:

Job 38:31 (ESV): 31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the cords of Orion?

 

[Jonaitis]

I dont think so, but the person who spoke on Sunday inferred that God was being sarcastic in Malachi.

what are your thoughts on this please?

He is anthropomorphically speaking.

God often conveys His actions in a way that relates to our human experience.

For example, we may read that "God's wrath was stirred," but that is only a phenomenological analogy of what is swift and immediate divine justice. We interpret that quick act of justice in a way that presents Him emotionally involved. However, God Himself cannot be emotionally triggered, for He is beyond such things. He is illustrated in a way that resembles a man's actions as the consequence of his personal feelings.

God is depicted in Scriptures as mocking the wicked, like in Proverbs, because they, having ignored His way, have fallen into many snares. However, we can look at it in a different light and say, instead, that God's calling love is the obstacle in men's ways, so they fall into many snares.

 

[GDL]

Yes.

He also ridicules and says things that most will not even translate literally (Song of Solomon) and speaks truth in ways that translators tend to soften because they apparently cannot see that God would say such things about men and their condition. I'd prefer that we stop trying to protect Him and just deal with reality.

 

[Tolworth John]

I dont think so, but the person who spoke on Sunday inferred that God was being sarcastic in Malachi.

what are your thoughts on this please?

Please read Isaiah 44:9-20 Gods commentry on those who make idols and see the contempt, mockery and sarcasm in his remarks.

As pslams says, the FOOl says there is no God.

 

[StillGods]

thank you all for your replies, I would have liked to respond with the informative button on each but this no longer exists.

I have never experienced personally God being sarcastic to me, nor read Gods words as in a sarcastic tone, so this concept is very new for me.

I will need to ponder more, thank you for all the thoughts.

 

[prodromos]

thank you all for your replies, I would have liked to respond with the informative button on each but this no longer exists.

Click and hold on the "Like" button until the other option appear. Then you will be able to select "Informative" from the list that pops up.

 

[prodromos]

He is anthropomorphically speaking.

God often conveys His actions in a way that relates to our human experience.

For example, we may read that "God's wrath was stirred," but that is only a phenomenological analogy of what is swift and immediate divine justice. We interpret that quick act of justice in a way that presents Him emotionally involved. However, God Himself cannot be emotionally triggered, for He is beyond such things. He is illustrated in a way that resembles a man's actions as the consequence of his personal feelings.

God is depicted in Scriptures as mocking the wicked, like in Proverbs, because they, having ignored His way, have fallen into many snares. However, we can look at it in a different light and say, instead, that God's calling love is the obstacle in men's ways, so they fall into many snares.

This.
God is Spirit, yet the Scriptures often describe Him as having physical characteristics such as feet and His right arm etc. These and other anthropomorphisms are a condecension to our weak, human understanding. Our God is a consuming fire, and how we experience Him has everything to do with our disposition towards Him. God does not change, He simply is.

 

[Roymond]

The prophets could certainly be sarcastic:

"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.”"

from I Kings 18.

"Relieving himself" is a nice translation because it's an English idiom replacing a Hebrew idiom. But what the Hebrew idiom should be translated as to get the force of this sarcasm is, "He's off taking a dump" -- because that's the more potent idiom.
Oh -- and "musing" could be translated as "daydreaming".

Elijah's put-down here is epic!

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I dont think so, but the person who spoke on Sunday inferred that God was being sarcastic in Malachi.

what are your thoughts on this please?

There is Sarcasm in the scriptures, especially the prophetic books and the Gospels. God uses it as a tool of rebuke, and it is occasionally used by the prophets, Jesus and Saint Paul.

I think the main problems people have of it in Christianity is we tend to always equate nice and mannerly with what is Christian and while that might be a good default position to have, it is a bit reductionistic and not really appropriate for extreme situations where people legitimately need to be called out for: foolishness, brazenness, hypocrisy, naivety, greed and so on.

Besides this God and other leaders sometimes like to use Socratic Questioning as teaching tool, and well sarcasm kind of fits in well and complements that device or method because, it allows you to stay in character (that you don't know the answer to the question) even though the context and voice tone say the opposite of that. So yeah, I am in favor of some kind of limited Christian use of sarcasm.

I also will point out that Socratic Questioning is a good and benevolent thing even when it used with sarcasm. As a child, I was largely taught without it, and can testify that being reprimanded for lots and lots of stuff both appropriately and for more petty things having that done in a really blunt way can be very demoralizing and tyrannical. So, pointing out the foolishness, the gall of something is a bit better than just demagoguing and intimidating someone all the time for such infractions. And this is why I think it used at times by God, the prophets etc. because it is a little less ham handed than simply chewing people out all the time.

Are there any examples of sarcasm in the bible?

The closest in tone to sarcasm, though somewhat different, that I am aware of is John 1:45-46 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the pr...

christianity.stackexchange.com

 

[Gregory Thompson]

I dont think so, but the person who spoke on Sunday inferred that God was being sarcastic in Malachi.

what are your thoughts on this please?

I thought God was straight up being vulgar in Malachi, where he said their feasts are dung, this implied they were eating dung. God also said he would smear the dung on their faces, and God would shovel them away with it.

I didn't get the sense of sarcasm in this book, but have read sarcasm elsewhere.

 

[The Liturgist]

He is anthropomorphically speaking.

God often conveys His actions in a way that relates to our human experience.

For example, we may read that "God's wrath was stirred," but that is only a phenomenological analogy of what is swift and immediate divine justice. We interpret that quick act of justice in a way that presents Him emotionally involved. However, God Himself cannot be emotionally triggered, for He is beyond such things. He is illustrated in a way that resembles a man's actions as the consequence of his personal feelings.

God is depicted in Scriptures as mocking the wicked, like in Proverbs, because they, having ignored His way, have fallen into many snares. However, we can look at it in a different light and say, instead, that God's calling love is the obstacle in men's ways, so they fall into many snares.

I agree with @prodromos - your post is spot on. By the way, I love Wyoming, it is one of my favorite states.

 

[RileyG]

I think the ending of Jonah is rather sarcastic.

 

[LightLoveHope]

I dont think so, but the person who spoke on Sunday inferred that God was being sarcastic in Malachi.

what are your thoughts on this please?

I have heard the righteous aspirations of behaviour of believers is just sarcasm to show they fall short so need to rely only on Jesus.

Jesus said simply let your yes be yes and your no be no. So God is very direct.

For humans sarcasm is means of a put down, but the Lord rules no matter what, so put downs just need to be shinning a light on the
situation and speaking the truth.

I used to use sarcasm as a defence against the attacks of others rather than asserting the truth of a situation and being clear about
what is difficult about the situation.