Can You Interpret the Bible with Comedy? Jason Earls Says Yes
By Movieguide® Contributor
Christian comedian Jason Earls doesn’t live to make people laugh but makes people laugh to help them live.
In a new episode of the “Candace Cameron Bure Podcast,” Earls recalled a time in seminary when he first used comedy to interpret the Bible.
“It was in seminary that I had started dabbling in comedy,” he began. “I did this one class, and my professor’s name was Howard Hendricks, amazing man. We had to interpret Acts 3, The Gate Called Beautiful, in our own creative way. It couldn’t be anything that you normally do, you couldn’t preach, you couldn’t write. You had to develop some creative way. And The Gate Called Beautiful, if you know the story, there’s this man who’s begging, and Peter and John come walking up, and he begs.
“So what I said, now where I’m from in Virginia, we associate beggars as winos,” he continued. “And so…I act like a drunk man asking Peter and John, ‘Come on, don’t deny me three times, Peter.’ And then just begin to take the comedy dialogue of a wino and then start hitting the biblical principle of it.
“The class erupted, started clapping and standing up,” Earls added. “And Howard Hendricks said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, that is what I’m talking about right there.’ And it was at that instance, I was like, okay, I need to be doing this for real.”
He’s since taken his comedy on the road and even uses it when preaching the Gospel.
Movieguide® previously reported on Earls’ Bible-based comedy:
Actress Cameron Candace Bure is sharing a laugh with clean Christian comedian Jason Earls.
“Do you ever read a Bible verse and think, ‘huh, that’s funny…??!!’ ?,” Bure posted with an Instagram clip of her and Earls from her podcast.
“In the book of Job, Job is going through miserable things and he has these three so-called ‘friends’ that are giving him really bad advice,” Bure said. “And so Job responds to them in the advice and there’s a line in there that he says back to them—and I’m paraphrasing—‘If only you would just shut your mouth and let that be your wisdom.’”
Bure found humor in the witty yet wise retort.
“I was like, oh, Job, that’s so smart. Sometimes people think they are so wise and I’m like, if you’d like only shut your mouth and be wise from keeping silent. But like that it made me laugh out loud reading that in the Bible,” she said.
He also wrote a book called “Lifecycles: When Faith and Purpose Are Like Riding a Bike.”
“As Achim learned to ride his bicycle, I helped him grasp the basics. I gave him the best tips I could think of, ‘Look ahead! Don’t lean! Keep pedaling!’ He mastered the basics as he hung on to the belief in what was most important in the process, ‘Dad, you got me?'” Earls’ synopsis reads.
“As we approach the dreams and goals in our lives, we strive to master the basics, but we can always count on the One who has His best for us, knowing the truth of His answer, ‘Dad, you got me?’ Ride along as we learn to trust Him like Achim trusts his father,” it continues.
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