Fear - its many faces

👤Rachel

The Bible has a lot to say about fear and can sometimes seem to contradict itself. It’s therefore helpful to know that the word ‘fear’ has different meanings.

Proverbs 9:10 tells us: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The Hebrew word for fear in this context is yir’ah which means awe, reverence and respect for God. This is a healthy fear; I fear the consequences of wandering away from God, having seen it happen to others, including many in the Bible. I fear ceasing to trust God and becoming disconnected from him. It is worth noting, God will never walk away from us, but all humans will have a temptation at some point to wander away from him and stop trusting him.  Therefore ‘yir’ah’ is a positive, God-given fear.

The Bible also has a lot to say about negative fears that are not of God but the devil. I have battled these sorts of fears, and it has helped to understand where they come from in order to overcome. Fear is one of the main (very successful) strategies of the enemy which keeps many Christians in bondage and oppression. However, Romans 8:15 says “you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear…...” Fear in this context is ‘phobos’ in Greek which translates as dread or intimidation. It is not given by God and his solution to deliver us from this spirit of fear is to know we are his loved, adopted children and his “perfect love” which casts out this spirit of fear (1 John 4:18).

2 Timothy 1:7 gives us further insight about fear: “For God has not given us a Spirit of fear, but one of power, love and sound judgement.” This fear is also negative and not from God. It is from the Greek ‘deilia’ and is best translated as timidity or shrinking back. This kind of fear prevents Christians from walking into God’s will for them or fully trusting God. We see it in Numbers 13-14 when Israel shrunk back from entering the promised land after a report of giants. They feared men’s report instead of God’s promises. Tragically fear caused them to never make it to the promised land. Only Joshua and Caleb displayed enough courage to trust God, overcome fear and make it to the promised land.

It has also been helpful to learn these sorts of fears are not from God but they are also lies. You may remember, Joshua and Caleb, with God's power, defeated the giants they faced in the promised land. They did not believe the lies that said the giants would defeat them. Joshua and Caleb displayed the ‘yih’ah’ sort of fear, trusting in God, believing in his word, walking with him and staying connected to him. The fear of the Lord overcame the fear of the devil. Displaying ‘yih’ah’ in our lives enables us to defeat our giants too.