We are living in scary times. People are afraid.
Biblical fear can be good or bad. Perfected
love banishes it, but in a fallen world, fully mature love is a rarity and
fear still serves the
occasional valid purpose in God’s dealings with us. For one, Christians are
encouraged to bring our pursuit of holiness to completion “in the fear
of God”. For another, fear sometimes gets your attention in a busy world when
nothing else will.
Our modern translations tell us one of the things the
miracles of Christ regularly produced was awe,
usually accompanied by giving glory to God. The word for “awe” in Greek is phobos, more commonly translated “fear”.
This is fear at its most useful.
