Happiness and Joy, Part One

Here I am again, finding myself in a dispute with a well-known Christian author over an issue that many people would call trivial; some would even say it’s pointless. Being the semantic purist that I am, I naturally disagree. Words mean things, and Scripture word meanings have eternal consequences. In this case the dispute is whether happiness and joy are the same thing as far as the Bible usage is concerned. Randy Alcorn thinks so; I think not.

The publisher’s blurb for Alcorn’s latest book goes like this: “In God’s Promise of Happiness, bestselling author and noted theologian Randy Alcorn shares select passages and scripture from his latest hardcover release, Happiness, that provide insight, wisdom, and proof positive that God not only wants us to be happy, he commands it!” My dispute with this assertion centers on Alcorn’s conflation of two distinct words, two separate concepts within Scripture: joy and happiness. In interviews posted on his web site, Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), Alcorn has repeatedly stated that he believes the two words are interchangeable. I disagree.

Before I refute Alcorn’s “proof positive” that joy and happiness are the same, I will explain why this is not just a trivial argument over the translation of a couple words. The Great Commission calls us to bring the light of the Gospel to a dark world. In bringing this light to a post-modern culture that doubts the very existence of truth, it is imperative that we relate the truth revealed in Scripture with extreme care. Sloppy exegesis leads to inaccurate portrayals of God’s eternal truth. There is no passage in the Bible properly translated that suggests God wants people happy, let alone that He commands it. Telling people they must be happy is not only misleading, it is cruel.

The question arises how Alcorn, an otherwise responsible Bible expositor, can make such an erroneous claim. He can make such a claim because he fails to distinguish between two different Greek words used throughout the New Testament for joy and happiness. God does desire that His people have joy; it is one of the benefits of grace, also called a fruit of the Spirit. Nowhere does Scripture command believers to have happiness or to be happy. Even in our English language it is easy to see why happiness cannot be commanded. Happiness is a result of circumstances; happiness happens to one rather than one having happiness. We can have joy, but we are made happy; it is a reflexive type word, something done to us or for us rather than something we possess.

The Greek use of these two words in the New Testament bears this out completely. The word for joy (chara) appears 59 times in the Greek Testatment; the word rendered happy by modern translators (makarios) appears 50 times. The Greek makarios is translated “blessed” 44 times by the King James Version (KJV). This older usage is closer to the Greek meaning than our modern “happy.” To be blessed (again note the reflexive nature of the word) is to have something done to us. It is the result of things happening outside ourselves. Chara, on the other hand, is a state of being; it is something a person can possess. Chara is never rendered as “happy” by the KJV, nor should it be.

I mentioned that misconstruing happiness for joy is cruel. I say this because happiness results from our circumstances which are very often completely out of our control. It would be cruel to tell a young mother who has lost her husband that she must be happy. Being happy in that situation would be entirely unexpected (unless the husband was abusive). However, that suffering mother can have joy in her time of loss because she knows there is a greater purpose for her life, and there is a greater goal than happiness in this world. Here we reach the crux of the issue.

The bottom line to me is that these two words have different meanings in the original language of Scripture as inspired by the Holy Spirit. It clouds the understanding of God’s Word to make two different words synonymous. For my part, I believe that happiness is an emotion that results from positive circumstances and resides in the human soul. It is healthy, and our loving Father desires that we attain it when appropriate. Joy, on the other hand, is a spiritual concept (I hesitate to use “emotion”) which exists deeper within the “inner man,” and it is not dependent upon outside circumstances. The Spirit gives us inner joy in all circumstances; happiness is dependent upon that which occurs around us.

In my next post I will go into greater detail to refute Alcorn’s assertion that joy and happiness are synonymous. At this point I would simply say that confusing happiness with joy and then expecting it of all believers is akin to the prosperity preachers saying that God wants every believer healthy and wealthy. There simply is no proof of that in Scripture. (For more on this see Abraham's Promises.) Quite the contrary, we are commanded to be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, rejoicing, having joy, even in our want (Philippians 4). That sounds like a distasteful message to foist on a needy world, but the truth is that joy is eternal; happiness lasts only for the moment. For Randy Alcorn and Eternal Perspective Ministries, that appears to be ironically unimportant.