I THESSALONIANS 5:22: AVOID THE APPEARANCE OF EVIL

I Thessalonians 5:22 says “avoid every appearance of evil.” This verse has probably been misapplied more than any other in the Bible. What was constantly being beat into us at church while I was growing up was the line, “What will other people think when they see you...? (followed by a list of dubious practices that were not evil in themselves but might possibility be misinterpreted by outsiders who would think you were doing something evil). With Southern Baptists, I guess it was dancing at one time.

In my church it was usually rock and roll music. I still the remember the title of a pamphlet that a well--meaning elder handed out in our high school class: “The Devil's Dance of Death and Damnation.” The author was subsequently convicted of child molestation. I guess he didn't think that qualified as evil as long as no one saw you doing it.

The adults in our church were too old to be corrupted by rock and roll music, but the minister's wife told the woman's class that it was alright for them to play cards as long as the deck had no face cards in it. If you were playing with an ordinary deck, someone might see it and think you were gambling.  On the other hand, in my wife's church, going to the movies to see any movie was taboo because people who saw you coming out of a theater might think you were going to a dirty movie, which at that time would have meant PG rather than G rated. The fact is, as any Bible translation made after the KJV will show, the emphasis is not at all on appearances and what others might think. It is on avoiding actual evil itself.