Biblical Fear

When I was growing up, I was taught that the "fear of the Lord" was akin to 'a healthy respect for' or 'reverence for', but I'm starting to question that. The other night, it occurred to me that there are two types of fear mentioned in the Bible; there is a fear which talks about how we relate to God and there is a fear/worry/anxiety about this world or regarding the things of this world. Here are some relevant Scriptures to help me illustrate this:

Matthew 10:28

"Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (NIV)

This, to me, is the clearest passage that distinguishes the difference. Jesus is clearly saying here - do not fear this world because the worst it can do is destroy your physical body, but after that it has no power. God, however, has the power to send you to eternal torment and punishment in hell. If we aren't found in Him on the day when Jesus returns, then we will face His wrath - which certainly merits fear...actual fear.

1 John 4:18-19

"Where there is love there is no reason to be afraid; indeed, love that is blameless drive fear away. Fear, after all, anticipates what? Punishment. If someone fears punishment, he still hasn't been made blameless in love. We love because he first loved us." (Blessed Hope Translation**)

I used to think this was one of those passages that was saying I shouldn't be afraid of God because, "God is love". In reality however, I think it is saying the opposite. I think this is saying that if we live in the Messiah's love, and by that I mean live it out, then we have nothing to fear. But to the one who builds his own Kingdom - to the one who walks around with this "I am awesome" mentality; that person has reason to fear. The verses immediately prior to the passage I quoted highlights this, "Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement..." (1 John 4:16-17) Implied in verse 16 is that if you do not live in love, you do not live in God and God does not live in you. If love is not made complete in you (verse 17), then you do not have reason for confidence on the day of judgement. Jesus even goes on, a few chapters later, to explain what it means to love him. He says, "On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me." (John 14:20-21, Berean Study Bible)

Hebrews 10:26-27

"If we go on sinning deliberately, you see, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no other sacrifice being held in reserve to atone for sins. No, the only thing held in store now is a terrifying dread of judgement and of fire a blazing fury, a fire which is ready God's foes to devour." (Blessed Hope Translation)

"If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgement and raging fire that will consume all adversaries." (NIV)

To me, this verse couples well with Matthew 12:30 - "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters." If we are living in God's love, obeying his commandments and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us holy - then we have nothing to fear, we are "co-heirs with Messiah" (Romans 8:17). If we are being disobedient, however, we are enemies of God and we have only "a terrifying dread of judgement".

Matthew 6:25-27

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" (NASB)

The things Jesus lists here, food, drink, clothing - they are all things of this world. "Do not fear a lack of basic needs, or make this life all about the things of this world" is basically what he is saying. His summary statement after this is "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS will be added to you."

Hebrews 13:5-6

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?"

Implied here again is that the world and the things it can do to us; we are not to be afraid of these things.

Another interesting story to consider is that of Adam & Eve. After they ate the forbidden fruit, we read this: "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." (Genesis 3:8-10)
Adam knew that he had broken God's law and he was afraid...and not just a 'reverential fear', but a fear that caused him to literally hide from God. We don't hide from things that we don't have an actual fear of.


I think the bottom-line is that my view of God has been too small. Francis Chan talks about this some in his book "Crazy Love", but that's really is what is comes down to. It makes me think about Job, who sat there and demanded God to give him audience and then God shows up and this is what God says, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct me! Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know."" (Job 38:1-5, NASB) Job's response is perfect, he says, "Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; even twice, and I will add nothing more." (Job 40:4-5) His breath is literally taken away and you can tell from his response that he now has an appropriate concept of who God is and how unsurpassably great and awesome He is. I need to work on this.

I think fear gets a bad rap - especially spiritual fear. People say that fear is a bad motivator, or that things done out of fear don't last. I don't think that's wrong - but I think fear can be an excellent catalyst for change. I think God's ultimate aim is that we come to love and adore Him and that love will be what motivates our on-going walk with Him (see John 4 above)...but for a lot of people, myself included, the thing that got me on that path towards loving Him was a healthy dose of fear...a kick in the rear, a fire under my butt. It was God saying, "Adam, if you continue in the direction you are going, you will not grow up, you will not mature and the seed of Truth that was planted in you will get choked out and die." It was the 'fearful expectation of judgement' and the realization that I was on a road to destruction.

**A man named Tim Miller, who I have learned a great deal from, recently finished and published his own translation of the New Testament (from the original Greek) and you can access that translation by going to his website, blessedhope.life. He sought to put together a faithful, fully transparent translation and the end result is fantastic, I highly recommend it.

What Are Our Modern Idols?

This whole pandemic situation has left me quite introspective and as normal life has been put on hold and the normal busyness of life has subsided in the wake of social-distancing and shelter-in-place, it has been easier to self examine. Initially, I was quite angry - angry at what I felt (and still feel) was hyperventilation and overreaction, but I couldn't stay in that mode for very long, so my initial feelings of anger subsided into something like acceptance. It's not an idle acceptance, but it is a realization that I cannot change much on my own, so I need to stop being so frustrated by it all. One side-effect of all of this though has been some rarefied mental clarity. I find myself able to think about the big picture of things much more clearly.

The other day, I started thinking about modern idols. Obviously most of us are not walking around making physical idols for ourselves, cast out of some precious material, as in the days of old. No, today's idols are much more subtle, but every bit as misguided. Here are three that I've come up with:

The Idol of Safety
There is no denying, especially now, that we live in a culture that is obsessed with 'safety'. My best evidence of this is the fact that in neighborhoods all across Illinois, they dug up the last square of sidewalk concrete at every intersection to install a "pad" with raised bumps on it in order to prevent people from slipping as they came to stop to wait for traffic to pass...at least I think that's what it intended for. Regardless, the financial cost of doing this had to be incredible while the incidence of injury or death that is saves has to be incalculably small.

The response to COVID-19 has also revealed just how much of an idol safety is. If this is a novel virus (meaning new) which there is no reason to doubt, then everyone is going to get it at some point. All of the social-distancing efforts and shelter-in-place orders were sold as a way to "slow the spread" or "save lives", when in fact, this is a stretch, at best. I see the benefit in not overwhelming hospitals, but this virus will kill exactly as many people as it will kill. That may seem like a tautology, but we do not have cures for viruses - and any vaccine that is developed will likely be fairly ineffective on a broad scale, just as the flu-vaccine is (typically 10-20% effectiveness). We can treat people with viruses, and that may indeed 'save' some small number of lives, but typically, the people who die from viruses are people with co-morbidities or the very old/very young. This virus has been no different - and once the "low-hanging fruit", as one scientist described it, have had the virus, death numbers will drop significantly as the virus encounters healthier people whose immune systems will prove quite formidable. But, I digress. My point is, you aren't any safer in your home than you are outside - and that is true whether you are talking about this virus, or regular daily life. If  you get into a car, you aren't safe. If you're walking down the street, you are not safe - no matter what you do, there are hundreds of things that can kill you - maybe not immediately, but at some point. As the trite saying goes, the death-rate for humanity is 100%. Illness, accident, or evil, something is going to get you. A fear of death and suffering has led to making an idol out of safety - even if that idol is a complete mirage. At the end of the day, it's about control - convincing ourselves that if only we have enough control, we can stop bad things, perhaps even death itself, from happening. It's false. It's empty. It's an idol.

**great verse I thought of after the fact: Matthew 6:27, "Who of you by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?" (BSB)

The Idol of Open Options
I can't claim credit for this one - I first read about it a few months ago in a Gospel Coalition article - but since then, I have seen it over and over. Read the article if you want a full explanation, but in a nutshell, it is this idea that we love not having to commit to anything. The author of the article uses some fairly banal examples - replying 'maybe' to party invitations, always looking for better conversations than the one we're in, etc - but there are some very serious real-life ways in which this plays out, particularly in the life of someone following Messiah Jesus. For example - do we read the Bible and not take some of it's commands at face-value? Let's take 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 which reads, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, not drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." I used to read that and think to myself, "that cannot possibly mean what it says  because I look at pornography every once in awhile and if I'm reading this right, it says that will disqualify me from entering the Kingdom of God" (Heaven). That was me, bowing down to the Idol of Open Options. It very clearly DOES say that people who don't obey what Jesus commanded WILL NOT enter with Him into his Kingdom...and yet my flesh didn't like that and so it sought another way, another option.
Jesus very clearly says, three times in John 14, "If you love me, you will keep My commandments" (verse 15), "whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me" (verse 21) and "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him" (verse 23). There is no "if you feel like it" or "if you keep them most of the time" - it's all or nothing. As Christians, we need to first count the cost (Luke 14:28), and then either decide to be 'all-in' or not in at all. There is no middle, there is no having your cake and eating it too. God's primary commandment is "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength." (Matt. 22:37) There is no alternative. "Having options" is false. It's empty. It's an idol.

The Idol of Community
This could alternatively be called "The Idol of Technology", but most of what our technology centers around today is having or building a sense of community, or connected-ness. I have talked with many parents who have older kids (middle and/or high-school) during this pandemic and they tell me that their kids are 'living' on their cell phones, desperately trying to stay in touch with their friends. I see it in adults too, we can't go out with each other right now, and so we've resorted to endless video calls and the like. Don't get me wrong, humans are relational creatures, and we were created to be in relationship with each other, but I think it has become idol-like in the way, and to the degree which we pursue relationship. I'm not railing so much on actual, messy, real-life relationship, but how we have become obsessed, with the advent of social media, with being 'in the know' about the lives of others without really being involved. There are two sides to this coin, hear me out:

The Observer - I confess, I fall into this category. For me, social media isn't so much about staying 'connected' as much as it is an easy, typically effort-free way of knowing what people are up to. There are many others (usually introverts) like me. I am easily exhausted with having to be "on" in-person, and social media allows me to not have to put forth actual real effort. I can be in touch with someone's life without really having to make much effort.

The Sharer - This is the type of person who uses social media as a means of deriving some kind of self-worth from sharing their lives on Instagram/Facebook/etc. They share the good moments, or they make moments look better than they actually are. This isn't necessarily intentional because, afterall, how lame would social media be if we shared a bunch of mediocre (or sad, bad, depressing) moments every day? But it can lead to a false sense of what life is really like, or it can mask the true feelings of the person sharing. Even more insidiously, the sharer can become dependent on "being seen" (likes, feedback, etc) by his or her community - which substitutes for real relationship. If they receive a lackluster response to something, they begin to feel depressed or less-than.

Some people are combinations of the two types, but those two categories seems to describe most people. Someone cynical once told me, "everyone you know is going to disappoint you at some point". It's true - no human-to-human relationship is flawless or perfect; people are always going to let us down. Either they won't do something we want them to, or they will do something we don't want them to do. When we put human relationships on an inappropriate level, we are substituting the value that God says He has given us and that we have in Him, for false value derived from the acceptance and love of others. It's false. It's empty. It's an idol.


I would love to hear from you if you can think of other modern idols. Some are fairly obvious - we in the West are professional idolaters of entertainment and escapism. I could probably write a book on that, with evidence from my own life. But what are some of the less obvious ones? Things that we perhaps even subconsciously bow down to? In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul calls the believers in Corinth to consistently examine themselves to see if they are "in the faith". In Romans 2, he says that believers should "not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the reviewing of [our] mind." Here is my encouragement to be in regular self-examination of what you are giving yourself to. As John Calvin once said, "The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols."