09/12/2026
THE MOCKER — PART 2
Joking at the Expense of Others: When Someone Else Becomes the Punchline
Before we go any further, let me make something very clear:
I am not against joking. I am not against laughter. I am not against having fun.
I love to laugh. I love good humor. There is something healthy about being around people with whom you can relax, laugh, tease one another, and simply enjoy life.
The Bible isn't against laughter either.
“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine…” — Proverbs 17:22 KJV
So this teaching isn't an attempt to make everybody serious, overly cautious, or afraid to have fun.
The issue isn't whether we laugh. The issue is whether someone has to be wounded for us to get the laugh.
In our last teaching, we explored practical joking. Today, I want to turn our focus toward something different:
Joking at the expense of others.
Unlike practical joking, where a false scenario is artificially created through the actions of the person making the joke, joking at someone else's expense usually takes its material from a real-life circumstance.
Often these jokes concern something the person has absolutely no control over. Other times, they may concern something that potentially could be changed—but certainly cannot be changed in the moment in which the person is being publicly ridiculed for it.
It could be their clothes, their body weight or height, their hair—or lack thereof—their voice or mannerisms. It could involve their financial circumstances, a previous mistake, a past misfortune, a physical limitation, or some other personal characteristic.
Suddenly, something that is simply part of another person's life becomes material for our entertainment.
And everybody laughs.
Well... maybe not everybody.
WHEN SOMEBODY HAS TO PAY FOR THE LAUGH
Even the phrase should cause us to think: “Joking at someone else's expense.”
An expense is a cost. So who paid for the laugh?
Maybe everyone else got the laughter—but one person paid for it with embarrassment. Maybe the room enjoyed ten seconds of entertainment while somebody carried the comment home with them.
Sometimes the person even laughs along. But we should be careful about assuming their laughter means our words did not hurt.
Sometimes people laugh because everyone else is laughing. Sometimes they laugh because they don't want to appear overly sensitive. And sometimes laughter becomes the quickest way to survive an embarrassing situation.
A person's laughter does not always mean you have their permission.
Again, I am not suggesting that friends cannot tease one another.
Healthy relationships often have a freedom to joke that comes from knowing one another well. What one person finds offensive, another person may find hilarious.
Relationship matters. Context matters. Intent matters. And the recipient matters.
That's the caution I am trying to draw.
If we discover that something we consider funny consistently wounds another person, love should become more important than our right to tell the joke.
SCRIPTURE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT MOCKING PEOPLE
Proverbs gives us an incredibly sobering statement:
“Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.” — Proverbs 17:5 KJV
Notice the connection.
God does not merely identify with the person being mocked. He brings the Maker into the conversation.
There is something about mocking another person's condition that can ultimately become an insult against the God who created them.
That should make us think differently about physical characteristics in particular. When I ridicule someone's height, physical limitations, natural appearance, or some other characteristic they did not choose, I am making entertainment out of something connected to a person who bears the image of God.
Genesis 1:27 says:
“So God created man in his own image…”
The person who became your punchline is still an image-bearer.
That doesn't mean we can never laugh about our differences.
It means our laughter should never cause us to forget the dignity of the person we're laughing with.
There is a tremendous difference between laughing with someone and making someone the object of everybody else's laughter.
DON'T MAKE SOMEONE'S CALAMITY YOUR COMEDY
Proverbs 17:5 goes even further:
“…and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.”
Someone falls, someone fails, someone experiences an embarrassing moment or makes a mistake—and immediately somebody sees comedic material.
Now, let's be fair.
Sometimes people fall and everybody laughs—including the person who fell! Sometimes something embarrassing happens and years later it becomes one of the funniest stories in the family.
That's life. That's humor. That's not what I'm addressing.
I'm talking about the moment when our enjoyment begins to feed on another person's humiliation—when they are obviously uncomfortable but we keep going, when they ask us to stop and we don't, or when we know an area is sensitive and intentionally keep targeting it.
When the laughter of the group becomes more important to us than the dignity of the individual, that's where caution is needed.
Compassion should sometimes interrupt comedy.
There are moments when love should tell us: “This isn't the time to make the joke.”
WORDS CAN LIVE AFTER THE LAUGHTER STOPS
Proverbs 12:18 says:
“There is one that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.”
What an incredible contrast.
Piercing or healing.
The same mouth has the potential for either.
A joke may last five seconds. The laughter may last ten. But the wound created by it can remain much longer.
Some adults can still remember the nickname somebody gave them in school. Some remember being mocked because they were overweight or too skinny, too short or too tall, poor, different, awkward, or simply not dressed like everybody else.
Those words sometimes outlived the moment in which they were spoken.
The laughter stopped. The wound didn't.
And that's really the heart of this teaching.
I'm not trying to police everybody's humor.
I'm simply suggesting that when my humor repeatedly produces hurt in someone else, Christian maturity requires me to pay attention.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE PERSON MAKING THE JOKE?
There is another side to this conversation.
Sometimes we need to examine not only the recipient's reaction but our own motivation.
Why did I need to say that? Why was that particular weakness funny to me? Why do I keep targeting the same person or returning to the same sensitive subject?
Is the joking coming from a place of personal insecurity?
Is there an area in me where I don't feel accepted, significant, attractive, successful, intelligent, or valued—and diminishing someone else temporarily makes me feel better about myself?
Is there a place of unhealed woundedness in the person making the joke?
Sometimes wounded people learn to use humor as both a shield and a weapon. They learn to strike first, ridicule first, or expose somebody else's weakness first because if everybody is looking at someone else's weakness, perhaps nobody will notice theirs.
And there is another difficult question:
Do I draw validation from making someone else feel small?
Does the laughter of the room become affirmation for me? When everybody laughs at what I said about you, does it make me feel important, accepted, powerful, or included?
Again, this does not mean that every funny person is insecure or every joke reveals some hidden wound.
Sometimes a joke is simply a joke.
But repeated patterns deserve examination.
If my humor repeatedly requires somebody else to be diminished, perhaps I should ask why.
If so, the real issue may no longer be comedy.
The joke may simply be revealing something in the heart that needs healing. We often need to be healed and delivered of the behavior that causes us to afflict others.
Jesus said:
“...for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” — Matthew 12:34 KJV
Sometimes our humor tells on us.
When there is a repeated joke, a repeated target, a repeated insult, or a constant need to embarrass somebody, eventually we should ask:
Why does making somebody else smaller make me feel larger?
Proverbs 21:24 says:
“Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath.”
Scripture connects the scorner with pride. We should be willing to ask the Holy Spirit:
“Why did I need that laugh?”
That's a much harder question. But it can also be a much more healing one.
“I WAS ONLY JOKING”
One of the easiest defenses is:
“But I didn't mean anything by it.”
And maybe you didn't. That's important.
Intent matters.
But intent does not erase impact.
If I accidentally step on someone's foot, I may not have intended to hurt them. But when they tell me their foot hurts, my response shouldn't be:
“Well, I didn't mean to, so you shouldn't be hurting.”
Love responds to the pain it discovers.
Perhaps one of the clearest signs that our humor is healthy is what we do after we discover that it hurt someone.
Do we apologize, adjust, and care about what happened? Or do we immediately defend ourselves with, “Come on, I was only joking,” “You're too sensitive,” or “Everybody else thought it was funny”?
Christian love doesn't require us to agree that the person should have been hurt. It simply requires us to care that they were.
Ephesians 4:29 gives us another standard:
“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying…”
That word edifying means building up.
So before I use something about another person to get a laugh, perhaps I should ask whether it builds them or diminishes them. Would I make the joke if we were alone and nobody else were there to laugh? Would I want someone to make the same kind of joke about me, my spouse, or someone I love?
Jesus gave us a wonderfully simple standard:
“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” — Luke 6:31 KJV
PLEASE—DON'T STOP LAUGHING!
I want to finish where I started.
Laugh! Have fun. Enjoy people. Tell the Dad jokes. Laugh until your stomach hurts. Enjoy healthy banter among friends who know one another, love one another, and understand one another's boundaries.
This teaching isn't against humor. It's simply a reminder that our humor should never come at the expense of loving and honoring the people around us.
I'm simply suggesting that our laughter, like every other part of our lives, should come under the influence of love.
There is a line.
Humor stops being innocent when someone else's dignity becomes the currency used to purchase the laugh.
Before you make someone the punchline, remember that they have feelings, insecurities you may know nothing about, battles they haven't told you about, and a history you may not understand.
And perhaps most importantly—
Remember, they are your brother or sister.
Christian maturity isn't never laughing. It isn't becoming so serious that nobody enjoys being around us, and it isn't analyzing every joke until nothing is funny anymore.
Maybe it's simply learning to laugh without leaving wounds behind.
Sometimes love decides, “That's funny—but I don't need to say it.” Sometimes love notices that the other person isn't laughing and changes direction. Sometimes love apologizes when the joke went further than we intended.
And sometimes the greatest evidence of maturity is realizing:
I don't need to make someone else smaller for us to have a good time.
There are plenty of things in this world to laugh about without making another human being the price of the joke.
