I’d like to ask a deep, theological question: “Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?” Here is what you might hear generally around Christendom:

John MacArthur: That chicken was predestinated to cross that road.

Rick Warren: It was a purpose-driven chicken.

Billy Graham: The chicken was surrendering all.

Pluralist: The chicken took one of many equally valid roads.

Universalist: All chickens eventually cross the road.

Annihilationist: After that chicken crossed the road, he ceased to exist.

Baptist: Oh, he was just late for church.

Calvinist: It’s because he found the grace on the other side irresistible.

Arminian: The chicken could have crossed that road by free will only if he was aided by the Holy Spirit. (Mike Moriarty once told me, “If that chicken was an Armenian, he’d actually go to the middle of the road. He’d stay there. Then he’d get run over by a car.”)

Catholic: The Chicken crossed the road to confess its fowl sins.

Martin Luther: The chicken had at least 95 reasons to flee the Pope who had robbed him of the Gospel with all of his papist lies.

Agnostic: Did the chicken truly cross the road? Is there really a chicken? Is there even a road?

Jew: The chicken crossed the road because it wasn’t kosher.

Open View Believer: God didn’t even know that chicken was going to cross the road until he actually crossed it.

Charles Spurgeon: The chicken crossed the road to drinketh of the brook of life, kissing the divine lip of benediction with the sanctified beak of affection.

Tim LaHaye: The chicken didn’t want to be “Left Behind.”

Tomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Charles Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Joel Osteen: That chicken crossed the road to maximize his personal fulfillment so he could be all that God created him to be.

Peter Ruckman: The evil chicken in your life has come home to roost.

The Prosperity Gospel Preacher: He crossed the road to “name it and claim it.”

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Grace Pastors!

Of course, we have to ask the question, “What would grace pastors say about that chicken?” Ohhh yes! This is gonna be epic! Let’s start with…

J.C. O’Hair: That chicken crossed the road to escape the inpouring of evil Modernism. It has Christianity without Christ, a kingdom without a king, Bible study without a Bible, godliness without God, and what do we have left? We have chicken soup without a chicken.

C.R. Stam (said with really, really deep voice): He crossed the road because he in his own free will embraced by faith the Gospel of the Grace of God.

Paul Sadler: Brethren, mark my words and mark them well! That chicken crossed the road to study the Word RIGHTLY DIVIDED!

Les Feldick: That bird was like Peter in Galatians 2. He totally chickened out.

Randy White: He crossed the road to question the assumptions.

Steve Ross: Because his car broke down. That didn’t mean God was mad at him. It meant he needed to get AAA.

Josh Strelecki: (Josh would give us the definition of chickens, feathers, chicken feet, chicken beaks, roads, different types of roads, and everything the Bible says about “the other side.”)

Charlie McQuillan: (Charlie would perfectly impersonate every grace pastor and everything they said about the chicken crossing the road.)

Joel McGarvey: I’d love to agree with you guys, but then we’d all be wrong.

Bob Picard: That chicken was able to cross the road because he knew his old man was D.E.A.D. – dead!

Joel Hayes: He knew it would be TOTALLY EPIC.

Mike Moriarty: He was having a BAD day, because he’s a MAD BAD chicken in Christ!

Fred Bekemeyer: Because that chicken was doing pretty well, all things considered, living in a sin-cursed world in his as yet unredeemed chicken body.

Hal Bekemeyer: Did the chicken cross the road or did the road cross the chicken? YES.

Des Strydom: Did the chicken cross the road? Yes or yes?

Robert Bell: I can tell you why the chicken crossed the road! He was going to the hen, because my King James Bible says, “a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!”

Russ Hargett: (I’d love to tell you what Russ would say, but I can’t type that many words.)

John Verstegen: (John would ask his congregation, and they’d answer the question for him.)

Alex Kurz: (Don’t know what he’d say, but the hand gesturing would be HILARIOUS.)

David Reid: Well, you can decide for yourself but CLEARLY, if you really think about it, OBVIOUSLY… that chicken was doing two things. ONE. He was leaving his old destination and TWO, he was going to his new destination. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, right?

Bryan Ross: (I don’t know what Bryan would say, but I can tell you this. Before Bryan would say anything, he’d spend a summer reading books about the history of chickens.)

And, finally, there’s Pastor Richard Jordan.

What would Richard Jordan say about the chicken crossing the road?

Well, the first thing he’d say is something he said often in those videos for Grace School of the Bible. He’d say… “Do I really have to go over this again? We covered this yesterday. You guys should remember this.”

Then Jordan would say, “Fine. Let’s go over this again…”

First, he’d give us a little background about that chicken. He’d say, “Some claim a chicken can only be a Calvinist or an Arminian. Well, this chicken was neither.”

So why did that chicken cross the road? Jordan would say… “To get to the other side! Hello?” (You know how Jordan does that thing where he makes a point that’s common sense and then he’d say, “Hello?” This would be one of those “hello” moments.)

So then we might ask him, “But, Pastor Jordan, what was on the other side?” And he’d say, “His King James Bible, because that is THE written Word of God for English-speaking chickens! That chicken wasn’t KFC-only! That chicken was KJV-only!”

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Follow-Up with Bryan Ross

I told an abridged version of those jokes when I spoke at my first Jordan conference in January, 2020. Then, Mike and I started the Grace Life Podcast in March that year, and I got a message from Bryan Ross asking me what kind of feedback we were getting on our podcasts.

This was my first time talking to him. I couldn’t believe it. I totally lost my head. I said, “No way! It’s Bryan Ross! You the man! The Grace History Project! I’ve been watching you for years! I love you to death, man!” (It was terrible. I was gushing like a fanboy.)

We were having a great conversation. Then, Bryan says, “Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. You’re the guy that did that chicken joke about me, aren’t you?”

“Oh no,” I thought. “We were getting along so well, too.”

I wouldn’t back down. I said, “Hey, that’s a good joke. I stand by that joke. I got a big laugh from that joke.”

Then Bryan was gone for, like, 5 minutes. I knew what he was doing. He was looking up that video to see what the chicken joke was.

He came back and said, “In fact, I have spent summers reading books about the history of chickens.”