romans on Humor

Peter Ustinov, the British actor, director, and playwright, once received an indignant letter from the headmaster of his son’s school. The letter complained that his son frequently disrupted lessons b...

A man went in for his annual checkup and received a phone call from his physician a couple of days later. The doctor said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.” “What’s the news?” the man asked...

There’s a story of a young girl on a plane who was reading her Bible, and there was a businessman sitting next to her. He looked over to her and he said, you don’t really believe that do you?” And she...

A number of years ago, when sabbath laws were still a contentious issue, a church group was picketing a stadium just before a Sunday game. When Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay arrived, the minister co...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Comparison can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. I’m a millennial, so I would never tell you to shut down all your socials and go back to the Dark Ages. I love that I know you had sushi...

My wife is a big fan of an advice column called “Ask a Manager.” The articles offer a variety of subjects, many of which are serious, but some are downright hilarious. They often capture the absurditi...

One of the most quotable movies of all time was released in 1994. It featured a rising comedic genius from Canada, paired with another highly successful actor, as well as a considerable ensemble cast ...

One lazy afternoon day a turtle was swimming happily along a lake. As the turtle was nearing land he heard a scorpion hail it from the muddy shore. A scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, asked the tur...

The [true] story is told that Voltaire, the French Enlightenment philosopher, was speaking at the funeral of an aristocrat. In the speech he declared, “He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal ...

Even atheists find ways to pray. During the heady days of Communism in Russia, party stalwarts kept a “ red corner,” placing a portrait of Lenin where Christians used to keep their icons. Caught up in...

Earl Palmer frequently tells the story of a cross-country with two other young pastors early in his pastoral ministry. They were making a cross-country trip from the East Coast back to California. I...

A young boy was heard talking to himself as he wandered through his backyard, sporting a full baseball uniform, jersey and cap included, as well as a ball and bat. "I'm the best hitter in the...

A climber recently had to be airlifted off Japan’s Mount Fuji due to altitude sickness. That alone would have been a dramatic enough story. But four days later—still recovering—he climbed back up ...

An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...

In this short (and humorous) excerpt, author David Zahl shares a definition of the secular: Perhaps secular warrants its own explanation, though. My most immediate association comes from the belov...

Brennan Manning recounts the story of an Irish priest traveling through a quiet countryside when he comes across an elderly peasant kneeling in prayer by the roadside. Struck by the man’s devotion, th...

The Danish philosopher and contrarian Soren Kierkegaard once compared Christians of his time to a flock of geese in a barnyard. Every week, they listened to an eloquent speaker who recounted the stori...

John Chrysostom, the eloquent Church Father, had incurred the wrath of the Byzantine (aka Roman) Emperor Arcadius. Enraged, the emperor consulted his counselors on how to punish the powerful preacher....

Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955), the British microbiologist and co-recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of penicillin, often credited his breakthrough to a fortunate acci...

There is a Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy and Charlie Brown are walking home from school. Charlie Brown tells Lucy that he got straight As. Lucy responds, “I won’t believe it unless I see the report ...

Tradition has it that Jennie Jerome, who would eventually become Winston Churchill’s mother, once had dinner with the British politician William Gladstone. She left the meal thinking Gladstone was the...

In Arkansas, it is illegal to pronounce Arkansas incorrectly. It is illegal to build, maintain, or use a nuclear weapon within Chico, California, city limits. In Connecticut, a pickle fit for human co...

At a dinner party, [The Scottish playwright George Bernard] Shaw sat next to a young man who proved to be a bore of historic proportions. After suffering through a seemingly interminable monologue, Sh...

I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...

During the 1992 presidential elections a friend of mine told me about an awkward moment in his Bible study. One of the group members expressed excitement because that Sunday, she had seen a bumper sti...

A missionary was preaching in the village market, and some of the people were laughing at him because he was not a very handsome man. He took it for a time, and then he said to the crowd, “It is true ...

At university, I knew a guy called Captain Scarlet (nicknamed after the lead puppet in a cult TV series to which he bore a striking resemblance). The Captain was the only nineteen-year-old I’ve ever k...

Right before my freshman year of high school, I was hospitalized for a severe asthma attack that landed me in the intensive care unit. It was one of a dozen such hospitalizations during my younger yea...

A police inspector went to visit a primary school, where he was asked to take a Scripture class. He began by asking, ‘Who knocked down the walls of Jericho?’ There was a long silence as the children s...