{"id":1982,"date":"2005-02-18T15:42:48","date_gmt":"2005-02-18T20:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1982"},"modified":"2005-02-18T15:43:33","modified_gmt":"2005-02-18T20:43:33","slug":"fear-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2005\/02\/fear-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re commanded in the scriptures to fear God<\/a>. Why? What does this formulation mean, anyway?<\/p>\n

I recall asking that question as a seminary student. The idea of fearing God seemed a little strange — aren’t we supposed to love God, and doesn’t love cast out fear<\/a>? The statement in 1st John seems to strongly indicate that fear is a bad thing:<\/p>\n

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The answer I received, as a seminary student, was along these lines: “When it says ‘fear God’ it just means ‘be reverent.'” That was enough of an answer for me then — at least, it shut me up — but recently I’ve been thinking about the issue and I’m not totally satisfied with that general response.<\/p>\n

I should note that that seems to be the accepted answer. For example, we see “fear of God” verses listed under the Topical Guide entry for “Reverence.” (And if it’s in the TG, it must be official!). Similarly, the Guide to the Scriptures states<\/a> “Fear can have two meanings: (1) to fear God is to feel reverence and awe for him and to obey his commandments; (2) to fear man, mortal dangers, pain, and evil is to be afraid of such things and to dread them.” <\/p>\n

But this leaves a lot of questions. Let’s see:<\/p>\n

1. If “fear” means “be reverent” then why not just say “be reverent”? Why not call a spade a spade? (“In the Bible, when it says ‘a penguin,’ that means ‘a spade.'”)<\/p>\n

Is this an example of the Bible authors using a regular word in an odd way? (such as “know” for “have sex”). And if so, why? They had at their fingertips a panoply of terms to convey the idea of reverence — why did they use such a loaded term?<\/p>\n

(Or did they? Is this a translation issue? Are the words really the same in 1st John versus elsewhere? Perhaps our resident translation experts can elaborate, if there’s anything relevant there.)<\/p>\n

2. At least some verses contain admonitions both to be reverent, and to fear God (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>). If fearing God is just another way to say “be reverent,” why are these verses repeating themselves? <\/p>\n

3. In many instances of scriptural usage, “fear” comes across as sounding more like, well, fear. For example, we read in Mosiah that<\/a> the people “had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them.” That doesn’t really sound like reverence to me.<\/p>\n

Even more striking are the instances of “fear and trembling” in the scriptures <\/a>— often used to discuss the fear of God. For example, we read:<\/p>\n

“Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”
\n“My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments.”
\n“Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence?”
\n“I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel.”
\n“Wherefore, fear and tremble, O ye people.”<\/p>\n

These verses reflect a consistent theme, and seems awfully like one of fear, in the conventional sense. <\/p>\n

4. Have modern leaders de-emphasized the idea of a fear of God? I don’t recall hearing the phrase very often in conference. A quick search of some church articles suggested that it’s not a phrase that has gotten a lot of use in the last several years. Meanwhile, President Hinckley has consistently spoken about overcoming fear. <\/p>\n

How should we understand this topic, as church members? Should we simply read “fear God” as “be reverent”? Should we fear God like we would fear a plague? Are we required to be Dei-o-phobic? (Is that even a word?) Will we outgrow (or have we already outgrown) the need to fear God? I wonder, sometimes, how to apply this precept in my own life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re commanded in the scriptures to fear God. Why? What does this formulation mean, anyway?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}