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Fear of God

Verifyveritas76 said:
Never.

I don’t have much time to address this now as I am feeding the income machine, but in short, you are conflating wrath and chastening. Wrath is always for the sinner or evildoers and always ends in destruction. Chastening may be grievous for the moment but always yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness and is only for those in the family and always for the purpose of correction not destruction.

If you are utilizing your wrath to chasten or discipline your children, with the intent to instill some sort of physical fear of their father, then there are bigger problems in your home than conflating two entirely separate ideas in Scripture.
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Wow, really speechless with all of your responses. Thanks for ther input!

In closing I have response:
If you love me you will obey MY COMMANDS. 1 John..... Perfect love drives out all fear! That means perfect obedience is required here people! I'm not perfect, are you?
So God doesn't give out his wrath onto those he loves, I correct myself on earlier Statements that He doesn't bring his wrath in his people, I was very wrong as I re read this....
Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.
Acts 5:4‭-‬11 KJV

This is THE CHURCH WHO was afraid! Ananias was a follower a fellow believer, and his wife. God brought down his wrath on them and used it to teach the church to Fear God. I've learned not to test God, or His commands, I hope you all can as well.
 
I want to publicly appologise if I misinterpreted what you said by connecting the Wrath of G-d statement to the quote from Ephesians. Wrath denotes unbriddled anger with out mercy. I connected that to being your interpretation of why wives should fear their husbands. so thats where i was coming from.
 
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Kevin said:
I want to publicly appologise if I misinterpreted what you said by connecting the Wrath of G-d statement to the quote from Ephesians. Wrath denotes unbriddled anger with out mercy. I connected that to being your interpretation of why wives should fear their husbands. so thats where i was coming from.
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Thank you, no problem.
 
Kevin said:
Yirah is one of the Hebrew translations of fear.

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/Summaries/Eikev/Yirah/yirah.html

Yirah and Phobeo are words like Praus that when translated into English or other languages lose some of the meaning of the original language, the potentency of their meaning, and picking up the meanings of languge of the new language that were not intended.
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Yes, but Yirah is not the word used in my original post in reference to wives fearing (phobeō) her husband, it is the word phobeō used here, and "reverence" was not the meaning used here with this wording.
 
I thought we were all in agreeance that when the Gospels referance fear (Phobos) the L-rd, the meaning was rooted the in the Tanahk and the word that was being translated into Greek as Phobos was Yirah.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
Never.

I don’t have much time to address this now as I am feeding the income machine, but in short, you are conflating wrath and chastening. Wrath is always for the sinner or evildoers and always ends in destruction. Chastening may be grievous for the moment but always yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness and is only for those in the family and always for the purpose of correction not destruction.

If you are utilizing your wrath to chasten or discipline your children, with the intent to instill some sort of physical fear of their father, then there are bigger problems in your home than conflating two entirely separate ideas in Scripture.
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WAH-HUH-RAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
So we're singing my jam men! I love this song! We're going to crank it up to 11! Stand by for a mud fight! We haven't had one of these in a while!
 
Okay, now that I have that off my chest I will start composing a reasoned and logical response. I will forewarn you though that most of you aren't going to like it. It seems many of us haven't shaken off the last of the feminized nice guy "church" and we're still a little embarrassed of our calling.

Before we get started let me say that I don't think I've ever disagreed with Kevin before so this will be a new experience and that whenever it seems like scripture contradicts itself; i.e "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" vs. "perfect love casteth out fear" then we know that the problem isn't in scripture but in how we understand it. If your interpretation of this is that fear must not be a thing then you have some blinders on.

I'll be right back with my opening salvo. We who are about to die salute you!
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
Never.

I don’t have much time to address this now as I am feeding the income machine, but in short, you are conflating wrath and chastening. Wrath is always for the sinner or evildoers and always ends in destruction. Chastening may be grievous for the moment but always yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness and is only for those in the family and always for the purpose of correction not destruction.

If you are utilizing your wrath to chasten or discipline your children, with the intent to instill some sort of physical fear of their father, then there are bigger problems in your home than conflating two entirely separate ideas in Scripture.
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And don't forget Proverbs 13:24; "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." That chastening sounds a little wrathful to me.
 
You know what, why are we playing this game? You are all trying to substitute in reverence for knee knocking fear but scripture conflates the two, using the same word for both. You can't reverence God until you've feared him. It's the same damn thing. It's one word with one meaning, not one word with multiple meanings that we get to choose between based on personal preference.
 
And I think that what a lot of you are forgetting is that this isn't an either or question. It's not that you have to choose between fearing God or loving Him. It does seem to be a progression here, fearing Him first and then growing in to love. Although I'm not sure that is applicable to marriage since I John 4:18 says that perfect love casts out fear and I doubt any of us are claiming to have perfected love.
 
@Sean Miller I think what @Kevin and I are trying to point out is that there are several different English words that the Greek word Phobos can be translated into. Though there are a majority of places in the New Testament where the word Phobos is correctly translated as fear, this does not mean that every instance of the Greek word Phobeo (Strong’s 5399) should be translated or understood as the English word fear. In this passage in Eph 5, the translators very accurately translated Phobeo #5399 as reverence or respect (tho IMO reverence/awe is a more complete understanding than respect) due to the grammatical structure within the phrase and passage.

Reverence is defined in Websters 1828 as Fear mingled with respect and affection or esteem.

By Rogers. The fear acceptable to God is a filial fear, an awe full reverence of the divine nature, proceeding from a just esteem of his perfections, which produces in us an inclination to his service and an unwillingness to offend him.

By Webster. We reverence superiors for their age, their authority and their virtues. We ought to reverence parents and upright judges and magistrates. We ought to reverence the Supreme Being, his word and his ordinances.
They will reverence my son. Matt xxi.
Let the wife see that she reverence her husband Eph v.

Other instances of this idea of Phobeo meaning reverence but being translated afraid or fear listed below.

Mark 5:15 & Luke 8:35 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid

Luke 8:24b Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered saying one to another, What manner of man is this! For he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.

Acts 10:2, 22. A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. 22. And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by a holy angel to send for thee into his house and to hear the words of thee. 35. But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

Acts 13:16. Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.
13:26. Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.

Romans 11:20. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standers by faith. Be not high minded, but fear:

Colossians 3:22. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:

1 Peter 2:17. Honor all men, Love the brotherhood, Fear God. Honour the king.

And most pertinent. 1 Peter 3:6. Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid (Phobeos) with any amazement (ptoesis = with terror). The comparison here is that Sara reverenced her husband Abraham and called him lord (which is commended) compared to the alternate view of being Phobeos Ptoesis (afraid with terror) which is contrasted as being not good. I.e. whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with terror [of your husband].
 
Isaiah 8:13 "Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." This passage was delivered as a direct to instruction to Isaiah in verse 11. And fear here means terror and dread means to cause to tremble.
 
Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Notice that the fear here is the same between the two entities and means to terrify or put to flight.
 
Romans 11:20-22 should really end this debate though. Here Paul warns the Romans not to boast of themselves over the Jews but encourages them to fear unless God's severity which fell on the Jews would also fall on them. The word severity here has connotations of abruptness and being as hard as a rock. It also contrasts God's severity with His goodness and points out that if we continue in His goodness we will experience it but if we don't then we will be cut off with severity.

Here's the real crux of this issue men, most of us who shrink from this truth do so because we know that marriage is a metaphor for the Christian life and whatever standard are wives are held to is the same standard we're held to towards God. It's scary and I understand wanting to water it down.

I think the other thing we're missing in 1 John 4:18 is that some of us are assuming that the verse is talking about God's love for us casting out our fear. It is not. It is talking about our love for God casting out our fear or judgement. You have to start in verse 17. Verse 18 can get a little troublesome if you take it out of context.
 
I'm getting angry now, verse 17 says it all. If we love God perfectly then we have nothing to fear from Him. This passage has nothing to do with marriage or how God interacts with us. How do we love God? We obey Him. If we obey Him perfectly we don't have to fear Him. The perfect love that will cast out fear is our love, if we can perfect it. Until you do your skinny little butt had better fear His severity because He might divorce you.
 
Tried to edit this part into the last post but my pad was acting up.

Websters 1828

Fear. 6 In scripture, fear is used to express a filial or a slavish passion. In good men, the fear of God is a holy awe or reverence of God and his laws, which springs from a just view and real love of the divine character, leading the subject of it to hate and shin every thing that can offen such a holy being, and inclining them to aim at perfect obedience. This is filial love.
I will put my fear in their hearts. Jer. XXII.
I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Ps. XXXV.
The fear of the Lord is clean enduring forever. Ps xix
Render to all their dues; fear to whom fear. Rom xiii.

This filial fear is contrasted to;

Fear. To impress fear, to terrify. To put in fear to disorder, to derange.

Both definitions of fear from a period closest to the 1611 translations, thus giving us a clearer world view of the men doing the translating.

Websters 1828

Filial; 1. Pertaining to a son or daughter; becoming a child in relation to parents. Filial love is such an affection as a child naturally bears to his parents. Filial duty or obedience is such duty or obedience as the child owes to his parents.

Thus a filial fear is one that a spouse or a child would bear to their husband/father that is exemplified by love, affection, respect, reverence, obedience.
 
So in reality 1 John 4:17-18 is warning us to fear God until our love Him, which is expressed through obedience, is perfected. I am very disturbed that such a wrong reading as using this verse to forbid fear made it on to this forum through men who are usually very scholarly and thorough in their determination to get to what the text says, not what the Dobson crowd tells them it says.
 
ZecAustin said:
And don't forget Proverbs 13:24; "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." That chastening sounds a little wrathful to me.
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Based upon what exactly? A man that chastens his son has to be wrathful while he’s doing it? From what I’ve seen and even experienced as a boy, a man who is wrathful during “discipline” has either allowed wrongdoing to go to far and is exploding, or has conflated discipline (a regimen of training) with punishment. Because the parents have failed to train/ discipline their children, they now fall into the punish/discipline mode and its usually pretty wrathful. IMO this is not the Scriptural model. Scripture says that children are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is the first step. POSITIVE interaction with the children. IF this is ineffective then you move to the next step of punishment/chastening. This is NEGATIVE interaction with the children. IF this is ineffective, resulting and demonstrated by rebellion, disrespect etc, that’s when the Hebrews were to bring their children before the congregation and if reconciliation wasn’t forthcoming, THEN you had wrath. But not till that point.
 
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