Humanity discovered pretty quickly that if you want to rule over others, you either have to get ’em to love you so much they’ll trust you and do as you say… or be worried about what you might do to ’em if they don’t obey you.
Love takes time and patience on the ruler’s part… and even then, the people might be too stupid to obey the ruler anyway, much like a two-year-old ignoring the warning, “Don’t touch the stove!” Or of course projecting their own corrupt impulses onto the ruler’s motives, and presuming the ruler’s selfish instead of benevolent. (Much like every president’s opposition party typically does.) Love ain’t easy. But speaking from experience, it works really well.
Most rulers don’t have that kind of time or patience, so they just go with fear.
Still do. Politicians warn of all the terrors that’ll take place if the people vote for the other guy; that you have to vote for them, and if you don’t it’ll probably trigger
Because we humans like to justify our evil, ancient rulers grew to believe the people’s fear of them was a good thing. Their subjects should fear their ruler. After all, he was mighty, and could casually destroy them, so it was always best to stay on his good side.
Proverbs 16.14-15 NRSV - 14 A king’s wrath is a messenger of death,
- and whoever is wise will appease it.
- 15 In the light of a king’s face there is life,
- and his favor is like the clouds that bring the spring rain.
Proverbs 19.12 NRSV - A king’s anger is like the growling of a lion,
- but his favor is like dew on the grass.
Proverbs 20.2 NRSV - The dread anger of a king is like the growling of a lion;
- anyone who provokes him to anger forfeits life itself.
Proverbs 24.21-22 NRSV - 21 My child, fear the L
ORD and the king, - and do not disobey either of them;
- 22 for disaster comes from them suddenly,
- and who knows the ruin that both can bring?
Since Y
Deuteronomy 10.20 NRSV - “You shall fear the L
ORD your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear.” Deuteronomy 6.24 NRSV - “Then the L
ORD commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case.” Deuteronomy 10.12-13 NRSV - 12 “So now, O Israel, what does the L
ORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.”
Lest you think all this fear-talk was only found in Deuteronomy, where Moses was explaining the Law to a new generation not wholly familiar with it, it’s not; we see it in Leviticus as well. “Fear your God”
But this fear-talk regularly bugs Christians. Because we were taught fear is a bad thing, and we ought not do it.
Matthew 10.31 NRSV - “So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Luke 12.32 NRSV - “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Mark 4.40 NRSV - He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Matthew 14.27 NRSV - But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
John 14.27 NRSV - “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Revelation 1.17-18 NRSV - 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.”
If we’re not to be afraid; if fear is a liar, and makes us irrational, and God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear,
And yet even in the New Testament we’re instructed to fear God.
So yeah, it feels like a contradiction. A big ol’ discrepancy. A paradox: We’re to fear God, yet at the same time we’re not to be afraid of him. Feels a little like the writers of the bible weren’t in sync on this one. And it certainly makes our preachers sound inconsistent when they talk about fearing God… then talk about how God is nothing to fear. Plus too many of ’em have the bad habit on going overboard in one direction or the other, depending on their own biases. We have
All right, so which is it?
Fear and respect.
There were a number of dark Christians in the churches I attended while I was growing up, but thankfully very few of ’em got into church leadership. The pastors and Sunday school teachers I had, liked to deal with the discrepancy by redefining what “fear” in the bible means. And you’ll still find plenty of Christian teachers redefine it this way too. Biblical fear, godly fear, holy fear—as opposed to regular ol’ everyday fear—apparently doesn’t mean to be afraid. It means to respect.
So when we’re taught to fear God, we’re meant to mentally edit out that word “fear” and replace it with “respect.” We don’t fear God; we respect him. What you want, baby, he got it; what you need, you know he got it; all he’s asking is for a little respect when you get home. (Ignore the fact the Aretha Franklin song is about hiding your road trip affairs once you get home. Yeah, the 1960s was a pretty godless era.) We’re to treat him with all the honor and diligence he deserves, and he’s infinitely good, so he deserves our everything.
However. Whenever we’re not talking about God—when we’re using the very same word for fear, both in English and Greek and Hebrew—we go right back to meaning what we’ve always meant by “fear”: Being afraid. Being very afraid. Kings might toss you in a fiery furnace or a lions’ den. Governors might crucify or behead you, or put you on an island work camp. Invading armies, wild animals, war and recessions and fires and tornadoes: There’s terror all around, and some of those are very rational fears. But we Christians are meant to face down those fears with bravery, and not fear: Keep our heads,
Yeah, the dark Christians didn’t take this advice. Because they are terrified of God, and figure he’s out to get them because they tolerate evil instead of fighting it. So they either actively fight every evildoer they can find (and if they can’t find any, they’ll make some up, just like their favorite pundits do for ratings), or they withdraw from the world altogether and form little isolationist compounds… and get weirder
Redefining fear as respect is very functional. ’Cause you see its fruit: It keeps Christians from taking the dark Christian path, and getting all warped and scary. Christians absolutely should respect God, and revere his commands, and
But is it an accurate redefinition? Nah, not really.
The problem is we don’t really respect God. Not enough to actually make a serious effort to obey him. Not enough to stop
“Biblical fear,” if such a thing even exists, has gotta mean more than mere respect. Because mere respect simply isn’t cutting it. Look around you at the Christians who claim to respect God: They don’t respect him enough. We don’t respect him enough. We aren’t driven to respect him, to the level that absolute terror would drive us to respect a mad dictator. What we oughta see is that sort of response—but, y’know,
The ancients didn’t have a word for this sort of thing. Heck, we don’t have a word for this sort of thing. Humanity had to go with “fear” because we’re trying to describe the impressive monumental results which fear will generate. Fear built empires. Fear built the pyramids and the Great Wall. Fear built
Love can outpace fear if we’d actually give in to it, but humanity prefers shortcuts, and fear’s proven to be a really useful one. Sad to say, fear’s utility is why the writers of the bible, and Christians today, describe God with fear language. We’ve gotta fear God in the sense of “follow him as if you’re terrified of what he might do”—yet know
So when you read “Fear God” in the scriptures, the mindset we gotta have is we respect God; we respond to God as intensely as if he terrifies us… yet at the same time recognize he loves us, and no he doesn’t terrify us. Nor should he. He loves us, and wants nothing but good for us. But we gotta do better than mere respect. Far better.
