233. Should Christian Fans Really ‘Avoid the Appearance of Evil’?

“Judge not” gets twisted to shut down God’s Law.[1. Photo by Peyman Shojaei on Unsplash.] The phrase “money is the root of all evil” gets twisted to shut down biblical ambition. And “no eye has see, no ear has heard” often gets twisted to shut down a longing for Heaven. But what twisted Scripture most often gets used to reject Christ-exalting fantastical imagination? This top text may be 1 Thessalonians 5:22: “Avoid the appearance of evil.” But does that text actually say to avoid not just actual evil, but anything that appears evil in the eyes of … someone?

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Concession stand

• We are speaking here against a deep Bible misconception.
• For a moment, you may feel like we’re denying actual gospel.
• The myth is so common that even Google AI refers to the Scripture twist:

Some commentaries on the meaning of this verse include: . . .

• Avoiding not only the identical evil thing itself, but all shows and resemblances of it
• Terminating contact with any place, action, language, or relationship that gives people the impression that you are doing something wrong

• Notice our frequent use of the word someone. That’s by design.
• And that’s because some unknown someone often haunts this topic.
• Who is the someone? Why are we following his/her notion about “evil”?

1 Thessalonians 5:22 says:

Abstain from all appearance of evil. (KJV)

Reject every kind of evil. (NIV)

Abstain from every form of evil. (ESV)

Stay away from every kind of evil. (CSB)