Last week we talked about what is meant when the Bible says to “fear the Lord.” There are two words for fear in the Old Testament, one means terror and the other one means reverence. In the New Testament the context of a passage will determine what is meant by the word and what type of fear it is. Tim Keller wrote, “The fear of God, the holy fear, is an inward condition of awe and amazement before the glory and the wonder and the power and the grace of this God.”
There are cultural effects of fearing God and not fearing God properly. When we don’t properly “fear” God our lives begin to suffer and it leads to a misunderstanding of our knowledge. Not fearing God leads to us running to our own desires because we think we are the king. Not fearing God also leads us to a place where we start to create our own truth, and listen to others above Him.
When we have a proper fear of God we begin to listen to what He says; we trust Him in all things. Proverbs reminds us that we don’t follow God because of what we get out of it, Proverbs tells us many positive things that can come by loving God first.
We are starting a new series today that takes a trek through the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is not a linear book that travels a straight path from A to B, it is a textual/topical book with wisdom shared from various sages throughout the of the best Old Testament periods. Proverbs is about wisdom that teaches us to live in true freedom. As followers of Jesus we aren’t against the culture in which we live, we are for creating something that honors Jesus in all things.
