Every Appearance of Evil? Nope!

Have you ever heard this said by a preacher or a Bible class teacher?

"We need to always make sure that we are never anywhere or doing anything that could make people stumble or cause them to think we are sinning. You shouldn't go into a liquor store to use the phone because people might think you are going in there to buy alcohol and that could cause them to stumble."

Many times they will use I Thess 5:22 to support their point, "abstain from all appearance of evil." KJV. They then say that you must not do anything that anyone could possibly think of as evil. While their intent in teaching this may be honest, the Greek of the passage doesn't support what they are saying.

The Greek word "eidous" means "form". A more descriptive word for us is probabaly the word "type". So the passage is saying, "abstain from every type of evil" which is how the NASB translates it. The ESV uses, "abstain from every form of evil."

Romans 1 and other passages list types of sins: Slander, greed, gossip, strife, deceit, murder. Perhaps also something like pride might might be considered a type or form of sin. The main idea being that no matter what type or category of sin it is we need to not do it. It really focuses on what you do and not so much what people are observing in you.

In fact the context also supports this view. Vs 21 says, "But examine everything, hold fast to that which is good." So it's saying, hang on tight to doing the good stuff and then in vs 22, stay away from the bad stuff.

There is an early Church tradition that says this is a quote of a saying of Jesus concerning money-changers which goes, "As good money-changers, test all things: keep the good and reject the bad." Whether or not Jesus ever said that the Scriptures don't say. But the saying accurately conveys the idea of I Thess 5:21,22.

Now we still shoudn't do things or be in places which might make others think we are sinning. But we can't use this passage for support of that.

In any case - we all have cell phones and the liquor store probably wouldn't let us use their phone anyway.