A friend of mine put up an adorable picture of herself donning sleek pants that ran tightly from her waist to her ankles and it dropped at the edge of her Nike Boots.
In KJV-style sarcasm, I sent a reply like this:
Keep wearing what pertaineth unto a man...
Two people got the humor.
One other zealous soul gave me a provocative reply.
In the process, he acknowledged my education but queried my bible knowledge. I could feel his holy rage about my comment as he tripled his question marks on why I hadn't used my educational knowledge to better my theology.
???
But I've often wondered why we don't have a chill pill when someone moves within the perimeter of our beliefs. Our hairs rise, our nerves tingle, bile lifts in our stomach, adrenaline pumps, we seem to be more alert but we are simply too focused on the "precise" that we miss the "panoramic".
This is where we see the 'text' but miss the 'context.'
I presented a laughable opportunity, he saw a livid one...and he took it because it easily represented a common theme where people get scolded, rather than understood, for saying a different thing.
But this is very much the point where I get to say in loose terms:
"Don't take people too seriously."
When you do, you fasten your understanding to what people say rather than what they mean.
When you don't, you are intelligent enough to engage people who seemingly disagree with you by what they appear to say,only for you to spot that you MEAN the same thing and are on the same team.
The guy got the joke...but it was already too late.
Humor is truly an art. Pun is even more so. Only the truly nimble at heart can appreciate it.