Did Jesus Speak More about Hell than He did about Heaven ?

[Silly Uncle Wayne]

For more than 50 years, I have heard ministers state that Jesus spoke more of Hell than He did of Heaven. I heard it so consistently, and heard no contradiction of the statement, so I imagined that it must be true.

But after I read through the scriptures for the first time, ... the statement seemed less and less plausible, ... though I continued to hear it. I thought of all of the times Jesus described the kingdom of Heaven in a parable ... and couldn't hardly remember that He ever spoke of Hell as much.

So ... with the advent of electronic texts which could be searched for terms and topics, I did my own analysis. And I found that Jesus spoke of Hell on 60 or so occasions in the scriptures (including desciptive term such as of "outer darkness", "everlasting punishment", etc.), ... BUT, as one might expect, He spoke of Heaven (His home) more than three times as much.

On the one hand, I was relieved, because that accorded much better with my sense of scripture.

But, on the other hand, I wondered HOW it was that such a misfact had been propagated down through the years ... seemingly without challenge ... or honest evaluation by Christian leaders ? Why are Christian leaders so consistent in their proclamation of this mis-truth, ... and why did it require my own lay efforts to uncover the truth ?

Did Jesus speak more about Hell than about Heaven?

In the wider world most preaching is more about Hell than Heaven, but I can safely say that most of the churches I have been in don't do this at all. Hell is not preached about very often at all. It is taught, but the reality is that the people you are preaching to are mostly saved and therefore don't need to hear about Hell, but be reminded of what they have signed up for (Heaven).

In modern times as well the theology of Heaven and Hell has also been brought into question, meaning that preaching on the subject of either may be problematic.