Ever notice how words change meaning? Sometimes over centuries. Sometimes over decades. When I was a kid and read the word “gay,” for example, it was in the context of a verb describing the feeling of joy. Today, it’s a noun describing the sexual orientation of a person.
Take the word “fear.” When I was a kid, and probably even to this day, the word describes a feeling that something bad may happen because of someone or some event. But in the Bible, they use that word often in the context of God.
And generations of preachers have latched on to that word to “scare the hell out of you.” Right? Remember, sermons typically are not intellectual arguments or teaching (although some speakers are teachers), but often they are speeches designed to trigger an emotional response in the listeners. So manipulating the word fear can be a good speaker’s gimmick.
I’m finishing my reading of Julian’s Reflections. Toward the end, she identifies four kinds of fear.
- Fear of attack — “which comes to a man suddenly because of his own weakness”
- Fear of pain — “by which a man is stirred and awakened from the sleep of sin”
- Doubtful fear — which draws you to despair, or the “bitterness of doubt”
- Reverent fear — “this is the most gentle, because the more of it one has, the less it is felt because of the sweetness of love”
I think that modern English of the last 100 years or so has lost the power of that last sense of the word. We use it more in the sense of being afraid, which is a state of being anxious. Whereas God, who also wants us to be “intimate” with Him, also wants us to acknowledge that He is the supreme creator of the universe and everything in it. In that case, we should be intimate without familiarity. A little like “I love Dad, but I still respect him” sort of feeling.
You are going to be hard pressed to find God trying to “scare the hell out of you” in the Bible. But you will see where He wants you to come to Him, but still hold Him in awe simultaneously.
Tags: attitude
Faith Venture 
Leave a comment