This interesting sign is popping up around the Indy area. I’ve passed it several times but today I just had to stop and take a shot of this one.
Let me start by saying that I get the idea and am sure the person who is paying for these billboards had the best intentions. But I’m struggling with one issue. Follow me on this:
“Avoid Hell”. Webster defines AVOID as the following: 1. To make legally void. 2. obsolete 3. To keep away from: SHUN 4. To depart from.
Now, if you are facing eternal damnation in the burning fires of Hell, is the first thought on your mind to make it legally void? Can we get a judge to determine that it just isn’t a legal option and therefore it no longer exists? I don’t think so.
If God has just banished you to the noxious sulfur-clouded underworld for all eternity, can we just proclaim it obsolete, as in, “Hell is old school and is of no real value to today’s world”. I doubt it.
If you skip to #4, you’ll find that the “depart from” spin just doesn’t work either because you are already there and getting out of Hell, I’ve heard, can be a little tricky.
So, we’re stuck with definition #3. AVOID: to keep away from or SHUN. This must be what the billboard really means. But is it a strong enough word to take on the situation? Really? We’re talking HELL!!! An eternity of shoveling coal for the guy in the red tights and all we want to do is Avoid it?
I want to avoid taxes.
I want to avoid the flu.
I want to avoid oatmeal.
I want to avoid eye contact with some people in the elevators.
I want to avoid the blood tests and the dentist.
I want to avoid a bad haircut.
I shun the extra piece of pie.
I shun my dog when she soils the carpet.
I shun my neighbor who needs their hammer back.
Heck, (or Hell for my more worldly friends), even Wikipedia gives a religious take on Shunning, providing several contextual examples of the Shun principle in action in the New Testament.
1Corinthians 5:11–13: But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel (SHUN) the wicked man from among you.”
Matthew 18:15–17: If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector (SHUN).
2Thessalonians 3:6: In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from (SHUN) every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.
2Thessalonians 3:14–15: If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him (SHUN), that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
Romans 16:17: I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from (SHUN) them.
Good stuff. But even in this context, I don’t see anything beyond those pesky sinners. Nothing really about the eternal damnation that is waiting. I just think that God wants us to do more than just avoid, evade, eschew and shun?
I believe that God wants every fiber in my body to recoil at the very thought of the sorrow and pain that will wrack my body for all time. I should have absolute disdain at the mere thought of the demonic underworld. I should be filled with unmitigated horror at the suggestion that my soul, precious to the creator of the universe, would even pass by the gates.
Like I said before, I get the point, I just don’t think the writer of this pious placard has really thought through the full ramification of this issue and how it could lead millions of sinners astray as they just try to avoid hell with the same energy they would avoid termites in their three-season porch.
That’s all. Everything else is fine.
