Fear is the opposite of Faith. We are not to have any trace of fear, so God commands us frequently in the Hebrew text, Do not fear! More often it is Do not be in Awe! In the Hebrew this is a very strong command that has no direct English translation. We are absolutely forbidden to entertain even the least speck of fear. We overcome fear by staying closer to God, worshipping, reading Scripture, making the good confession, and not dwelling on negative consequences.
We are not to fear the LORD* because He is our loving Father. Where Scripture has fear of the LORD* it is talking about heathens or backsliders, as in Isa. 2:17. And the loftiness of man will be bowed down and the haughtiness of men will be made low, and the LORD* alone will be exalted in that Day. 18. And He will utterly abolish the idols. 19. And they will go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for fear of the LORD*, and for the glory of His majesty when He arises to terribly shake the earth. Where other bibles have “fear the LORD” the correct translation is “revere the LORD!”
The expression, “spirit of fear” does not appear in Scripture, though some translations have that in 2 Tim. 1:7. There the correct translation is “spirit of timidity” in an exhortation to Timothy to use the spiritual gifts. We are to be bold in the things of the Lord, and bold in taking authority over evil spirits attacking us, but we are not to be awed or afraid of them.
Hi Geoff,
Thank you for your comments.
The enemies of God fear Him, those who love God revere Him.
Blessings, Bill
Greetings Bill,
Thanks for this blog, it has highlighted some question marks.
Your comments seem to advocate not fearing The One true God, but yes to revere. This is hard to accept when we hear so many saying fear God, and scriptures saying ‘a God fearing man’ and so on. As you say fear is the opposite of faith, without which one cannot see the kingdom of God. But it seems to me that if one genuinely fears God, this in itself is an act of belief, trust or faith, i.e. no faith, no fear. In fact this is a current phrase used on T-shirts etc. ‘no fear’ which seems symptomatic of the state of western liberalistic evolution worshipping culture. So what we should read from this is; ‘no reverence, honour or respect’, if indeed we should not fear God, but revere honour and respect Him.
Thanks for producing this lovely bible, apart from the content its great now all in our group use the onm bible, we just quote the page number. I wonder if the Rabbi’s call out ‘bring me scroll number 5’.