April 1st

On April 1st many people celebrate April Fool's Day by telling lies or playing pranks, or something along those lines. I would like to second the opinion of the person who wrote the below article concerning these activities, especially in regard to the Bible verses referenced, as God's opinion is very important to me, personally.
-Lady Theophilus

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A Little Talk on April Fools Day - Mr. J.D. Albertson

As Christians, we believe April Fools’ Day jokes, pranks, lies, and all other forms of deception or humiliation should be eradicated from our Christian life practices.
These kinds of “jokes” will be referred to as pranks in the continuance of this essay.

The reason we believe these pranks should be eradicated from our life practices is multifaceted.

First, these pranks carry a spirit of dishonesty and unkindness. We quote Wikipedia.org: “[April Fools’ Day] is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on a fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.”

The practice of these dishonest and unkind pranks, though usually done playfully, should be most carefully reconsidered. God loves honesty and kindness. Romans 12:17 says “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.”

Second, playing these pranks hurts our witness. Ecclesiastes 10:1 says “Dead flies putrefy the perfumer's ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor; so does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor.” We as Christians should be known for being upright and truthful. Why should we take a break from our righteous lives for one day in order to have fun or to fit in with others?

Third, the practice of pranks on April 1st hurts the trustworthiness of events that actually happen on April 1st. We again quote Wikipedia.org:
“The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system (specifically the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre), established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami in question is known in Hawaii as the "April Fools' Day Tsunami" due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were an April Fools' prank.”

“Gmail's April 2004 launch was widely believed to be a prank, as Google traditionally perpetrates April Fools' Day hoaxes each April 1. Another Google-related event that turned out not to be a hoax occurred on April 1, 2007, when employees at Google's New York City office were alerted that a ball python kept in an engineer's cubicle had escaped and was on the loose. An internal e-mail acknowledged that "the timing…could not be more awkward" but that the snake's escape was in fact an actual occurrence and not a prank.”

So, in conclusion, we should not have a practice of playing pranks on others because doing so would displease God, both by our lies, and the resulting damage to our witness. Also, having a practice of pranks on April Fools’ Day destroys the credibility of those things that are true, in the same way as the boy, in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”’, destroyed his trustworthiness by his lies.

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After saying this, and having you read that article to know where I stand on such things, I do honestly, un-foolishly, and humbly tell you my reader-friends, that today I'm thankful for the Lord's help to me taking a test to get my learner's permit for learning to drive.
-Lady Theophilus