Are Christians Allowed to Mock Others?

Many people who like to attack Christianity will tell a Christian that based on what their Bible teaches they have no right to mock or ridicule other people in any way. They do this because they want to set up a basis by which they themselves can mock and trample over the doctrines of the Bible and Christianity without receiving any sort of response. The Bible gives numerous examples of both Christ and Christians mocking unbelievers, but only when a given situation calls for it.

It is true that the Bible speaks constantly about Christians needing to have a general kindness and love about them. Any true Christian will live up this standard as best as they can as they go about their daily life both in public and private. However, this does not mean that in certain contexts there is not a need for mockery. Scripture is filled with examples of Jesus Christ himself mocking people in public.

In Matthew chapter 23 verse 13 Jesus says: "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men." Here we have Jesus Christ not only mocking the pharisees by calling them hypocrites, but also threatening them in a way with the phrase "woe to you." Jesus was speaking to the pharisees in this manner because of the way the pharisees approached and spoke to him. Jesus was not randomly addressing them in this manner. There was a reason behind the mockery and ridicule.

What we can learn here is that Christians should not go around mocking and ridiculing every single person they talk to. General day-to-day interaction with people calls for a kind and loving manner. However, when Christians are approached and attacked for their own beliefs then the situation may call for mockery and ridicule in order to defend the Bible and the faith. The Bible calls unbelievers fools and does not apologize for doing so.

When we read the Bible we need to be sure to take the context into consideration, because the context will always give you the true intent and meaning of a verse. For example, when people try to say that Christians should not judge others by quoting "Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged," they fail to read the next verse to understand the context which shows us that Jesus is telling us not to be hypocrites in our judgment. We must always stress the importance of context in our Biblical study, otherwise we could make the Bible say whatever we wanted. This is how cults are born.