The fear of the Lord
Our Disciple class is in the book of Proverbs. Every time I get to Proverbs, the issue comes up about the claim that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" in Proberbs 1:7. When I first encountered that verse, I was sure that they couldn't really mean fear, but something more like awe or reverence.
Perhaps it does mean that, but the Hebrew word is used in other contexts where it clearly means what we would call "fear." So I have tried to sit with that...to let the word be what it is, and ask what it might mean, especially since 1 John tells us that perfect love casts out all fear.
What I think now is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but not its end. The fear is the beginning and the end is love. Try this on for size. As I see people wrestle with faith...trying to figure out what it is and whether or not they want anything to do with it, the ones who take the plunge seem to start at the same place. It starts with the recognition that God is God and we are not...that there is a being in the universe qualitatively different from us, and with the power to squash us like a bug, should that being so desire. God is the one with power and authority, and we cannot do a thing about it.
I think that recognition is both necessary and terrifying. I have yet to see someone truly find God without first recognizing that any control we have is derived control, given to us by someone greater and revokable at any moment. It is the recognition of humility...not the kind that thinks we're undeserving worms, but the kind that has an honest understanding of our position as Created rather than Creator in the universe.
There are few of us who revel in the thought that we are not in control. It is frightening. It leaves us at the whim of God and the powers of the universe. But we have to go there, or there's no getting in. If we must remain in the drivers seat, we will never understand what God has truly given to us.
So...the beginning of wisdom is just here. Fear. Yikes...there is something bigger than me. Human beings are not ultimate...there is something infinitely larger and more powerful who can oblitarate the world as I know it without consultation with anybody else. BUT that is only the beginning of wisdom. Our journey starts there, but does not end there.
That fear is why, I think, that we call the news of Jesus "gospel," "good news." Good news is what we call news that has calmed our fears, and there is no better news around than that the God who holds our lives in hand is the God revealed in Jesus. While at the beginning of wisdom our teeth chattered and our knees knocked...knowing that God was in control, but not knowing what that God was like...Jesus relieves our fears. "Ah," we sigh. "So THAT is what this God is like. This is a God who loves me, who will forgive, and go to all lengths...even to death...to prevent my destruction." Jesus shows us that our fears were groundless...that God is love.
So I am no longer troubled by fear as the beginning of wisdom. There is truth there. We just must be careful not to end our journey there, but to travel on to the cross, the tomb, and breakfast on the beach. And finally, in perfection, all fears are cast out and only love remains.
3 Comments:
I struggle with those who "seem" to separate the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New and then those who make them the "same". Let me explain. Like you said, I think, if we fear God, we are humbled, but God changed everything for us BECAUSE of love--the Cross. Should we not FEAR? No. I fully deserve to be obliverated by lightening for some of the things that I have done, but I am humbled by a God who lived as human and experienced all that I have experienced and the died a horrible death to bring me to himself. Example: As I was growing up, especially as a teenager, I "feared" my father. Sometimes I even did not think that he loved me. But as I grew, I realized the sacrifices that he had made for me and I was humbled, no longer "fearing" him in the way I did before--accepting any punishment that I would get, knowing that I fully deserved it and knowing that he loved me. Anyway, that is my thoughts.
Oh, same dad? Yes, but I view him differently because of what I went through and because I've grown--does that make sense?
..."Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,
And Grace my fears relieved,
How precious did that Grace appear,
The hour I first believed..."
This is the autobiographical heart of the great hymn by Newton.
Our first encounter of the living God will strike us with terror, and that is a work of Grace.
Knowledge and love, the love of his law, the love of his ways, is a work of Grace that casts out fear as we learn to love.
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