Myth Buster

Have you ever read or heard someone say, "Jesus spoke more about hell than he spoke about heaven"? I've heard this many times, and one day I decided to find out if this was true or not.



My concordance search of the NIV showed that Jesus made the following references to hell:

• Hell--12 times
• Gnashing of teeth--5 times
• Fire--4 times
• Darkness--3 times
• Depths--2 times
• Hades--1 time
• Total references to hell--27 times

Jesus talked about heaven:

• Matthew's gospel--19 times
• Mark's gospel--5 times
• Luke's gospel--8 times
• John's gospel--12 times
• Total references to heaven--44 times

This list is just to the references using the word "heaven"; it does not include other references such as "In my Father's house" (John 14:2), which also refers to heaven. Jesus also talked about the Kingdom of Heaven (32 times) and the Kingdom of God (51 times), and He referred to the Father in heaven (16 times). These are all in addition to the 44 references Jesus made to heaven. The list also does not include references to heaven made by the gospel writers as they narrated the stories, such as "a voice from heaven" (Matt 3:17).

A simple concordance search shows that Jesus talked far more about heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven/God than He talked about hell.