N S B Notes: Fear, Respect, Reverence
FEAR IS A NEGATIVE EMOTION: Fear means an expectation of harm or pain. It is an anxious, uneasy, apprehensive feeling. According to Wikipedia, the Online Free Encyclopedia: "Fear is an unpleasant feeling of perceived risk or danger, real or not. Fear also can be described as a feeling of extreme dislike to some conditions/objects, such as: fear of darkness, fear of ghosts, etc. It is one of the basic emotions."
WIKIPEDIA goes on to say, "Fear inside a person has different degrees and varies from one person to another (see also phobia). If not properly handled, fear can lead to social problems. People who experience intense fear have been known to commit irrational and/or dangerous acts. Some philosophers have considered fear to be a useless emotion with uniformly bad consequences; other thinkers note the usefulness of fear as a warning of bad situations."
WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY offers similar definitions of the word fear with the exception of one particular definition that is totally incompatible with the true negative descriptions of fear. That is: "fear of God, to feel reverence or awe." Is reverence or awe for God really fear? Or is Webster's definition out-of-date and in need of revision? Could there be good fear as well as bad fear? That's like asking the question is there good evil and bad evil? Or is the negative really positive?
The word "phobia" means fear. It comes from an ancient Greek word "fobos." Fobos denotes a number of psychological conditions that range from serious disabilities to common fears. Check out the website "phobialist.com." Hundreds of phobias from Ablutophobia, "fear of washing and bathing" to Zoophobia, "fear of animals" are listed. Our society is full of anxiety and fear! Should our religion fill us with even more fear?
THE HISTORY CHANNEL'S REPORT ON PHOBIA: "A Phobia is intense and persistent fear of a specific object, situation, or activity. Because of this intense and persistent fear, the phobic person often leads a constricted life. The anxiety is typically out of proportion to the real situation, and the victim is fully aware that the fear is irrational." Does this sound like something a God of Love would inflict on His loyal followers?
SEARCH INTERNET...SEARCH PUBLIC LIBRARY: You will find endless sources for information about the emotion of fear. A search on the Internet will reveal more than 200 million sources. A common theam in many of these sources is that fear is a negative emotion.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY? We learn at Proverbs 16:6: “Respect for Jehovah keeps one away from sin.” The Hebrew word here is "yirah." It is used to describe fear, respect and reverence. This respect is a deeply expressed reverence out of love, not a cringing, cowering fear. The Holy Scriptures makes it abundantly clear that a person must be deeply concerned about the consequences of his actions. This is especially true if he does not believe and obey Jehovah God and his Son Jesus Christ. (Proverbs 9:10) (John 3:36)
The Greek word at 1 Peter 2:17 is "phobeo." It means fear, alarm, or fright. It also means respect, awe, and reverence. Take your pick. That's exactly what the King James Bible translators did. They chose the word fear because the society in which they lived understood this word to mean positive things such as respect, awe and reverence. We live in the 21st Century and the word fear is a negative word in our society.
Christians are instructed to please God at Hebrews 12:28: “Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe.” Does this require fear-inspired groveling and cringing before the true God of love? Or does true faith require a positive and loving approach? Is God really love? Or is God fear? “God is love!” (1 John 4:8) (1 Corinthians 13:13)
THERE IS NO FEAR IN LOVE: “There is no fear in love. Perfect love throws out (expels) fear because fear involves restraint (punishment). He who fears is not made perfect (mature) through love.” (1 John 4:18) The idea that love gets rid of fear is not man’s idea. It comes from the inspired Word of God. The more we love God the more we respect and reverence Him. Not fear… respect!
FOUR BASIC QUALITIES OF GOD: Fear is not listed as one of the four basic qualities of God. (Revelation 4:7) (Ezekiel 1:10) These qualities include: justice, power, wisdom and love.
WATCHTOWER MAGAZINE: The Watchtower Magazine properly describes Godly fear as a positive concept. “It is a profound reverence and deep respect for God, a strong desire not to displease him. It includes acceptance of and strict adherence to God’s moral standards and a desire to live by what God says is right or wrong.” (Isaiah 11:3) (Psalm 115:11) Notice the words used to describe fear are not the word “fear” itself but the more positive words “reverence” and “respect.” (Watchtower Magazine, August 1, 2006, page 21, par 2)
“The fear of God conveys healthful feelings – awe, reverence and deep respect. These noble emotions are coupled with love for and attraction toward God, not an instinct to flee and hide from him....No threat from evil men or from Satan himself can overpower our deep respect and reverence for Jehovah.” (Awake Magazine: January 8, 1998…How Can You Fear a God of Love.)
“Godly fear includes even more than that. It is awe of Jehovah, a profound reverence for him, coupled with a wholesome dread of displeasing him. (Psalm 89:7)” (Watchtower: March 15, 1995, page 10, par 2)
“How important it is for all of us to cultivate that wholesome fear! ‘The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom.’ (Psalm 111:10) This fear is no morbid dread of Jehovah. Rather, it is a profound respect for his awesome majesty and godly qualities, based on the insight we receive through a study of God’s Word. “ (Watchtower: January 1, 1992, page 19, par 3)
In a recient discussion of the 34th Psalm, the Watchtower Magazine stated: "As Creator and Sovereign Ruler of the universe, Jehovah deserves to be feared. However, such fear is not abject terror of a cruel god. It is reverential awe because of who Jehovah is. It is also the fear of displeasing him. Godly fear is noble and uplifting, not depressing or terrifying..." (Watchtower Magazine 3/1/07, page 25, paragraph 3) If Godly fear is reverential awe, noble, and uplifting, why not call it what it is: "awe, reverence, and respect?" This is certainly a matter for very serious prayer and meditation!
SEARCH WATCH TOWER LIBRARY FOR 'FEAR' When you search the word "fear" on the Watchtower CD Library you find out that it was stated 10,468 times in the Watchtower and the Awake Magazines since 1950. How many articles about Godly fear have been printed in these two magazines in the past 57 years, 100, 200, or maybe more? And each article concludes that Godly fear is deep reverence, respect and awe for God. Why spend all this time explaining what should be transliterated to more understandable English words in the Bible translation? Please pray about it Brothers! (See: "NSB versus NWT" in Translation Notes)
THE WORST FEAR OF ALL...THE FEAR OF CHANGE: Human beings are plagued with an insidious fear. It is deeply ingrained in all of us. It is the worst fear of all, the fear of change. There is an old saying, “old habits die hard.” We learn to think a certain way and are not willing to change and to learn new ways of thinking. Try substituting the words respect and reverence for the word fear when talking about Godly fear and soon you too will see how much more positive and loving it sounds.
FEAR OF DEATH AND HELL: What happens when we die? This is one of the great questions of life. Is death the end of human existence and consciousness, or do we continue in some other place or state of being? Do we go to a place of everlasting reward or eternal torment? Are bad people tortured for eternity? Hateful religionists whose goal is to frighten people into believing the way they believe misdirect millions of people, perhaps billions of people. Their goal is to instill primal fear into your heart and mind. And they accomplish this by convincing you that the true God of love is really a God of fear and hate! Do we really need to enhance our natural fear of death and use it to force people to believe?
HELL: In the seventeenth century, when the King James Version of the Bible was written, people stored their potatoes in hell. Hell was a cellar, a pit where root vegetables were stored, and the grave where dead people were buried. The word hell is not found in the New Simplified Bible. This is because the vast majority of the religious population today thinks hell is a place of everlasting torment. Proper translation of the Hebrew and Greek words lead us to understand that it is simply the grave. (See NSB Note: Grave, Sheol, Hades, and Hell)
FEAR OF GOD USED BY NEARLY ALL TRANSLATORS: More than 90 percent of all English Bible translations use the term "fear of God." And yet, in reality “fear of God” is actually awe and a profound reverence for the Creator and a wholesome dread of displeasing him. The words "reverence" and "respect" are used instead of fear when used to describe man’s relationship to God in the New Simplified Bible. They express a more loving and positive attitude then the word fear.
Is it any wonder that most Bible translations use the negative word “fear” instead of the words “respect” and “reverence”? After all nearly every Hebrew and Greek word can be translated to the English word fear. That includes the so-called good fear and bad fear. Translators should use the context of each verse to help determine if “respect” and “reverence” could be used instead. The following definitions from James Strong’s Dictionary give evidence of this:
HEBREW WORDS IN STRONG’S DICTIONARY
H3372 YARE, yaw-ray’: A primitive root; to FEAR; morally to REVERE or REVERENCE; causatively to FRIGHTEN
H3373 YARE, yaw-ray’: From H3372; FEARING; morally REVERENT: - afraid, fear (-ful).
H3374 YIRAH, yir-aw’: Feminine of H3373; FEAR (also used as infinitive); morally REVERENCE: - X dreadful, X exceedingly, fear (-fulness).
H4172 MOWRA, mo-raw’: From H3372; FEAR; by implication a fearful thing or deed: - dread, (that ought to be) fear (-ed), terribleness, TERROR.
H6206 ARATS, aw-rats’: A primitive root; to AWE or (intransitively) to DREAD; hence to HARASS: - be affrighted (afraid, dread, feared, terrified), break, dread, FEAR, oppress, prevail, shake terribly.
H6342-6343 PACHAD, paw-khad’: A primitive root; to be startled (by a sudden alarm); hence to FEAR in general: - be afraid, stand in awe, (be in) fear, make to shake.
GREEK WORDS IN STRONG’S DICTIONARY
G5399 PHOBEO, fob-eh’-o: From G5401; to frighten, that is, (passively) to be alarmed; by analogy to be in AWE of, that is, REVERE: - be (+ sore) afraid, FEAR (exceedingly), REVERENCE.
G5401 PHOBOS, fob’-os: From a primary phebomai (to be put in fear); alarm or fright: - be afraid, + exceedingly, FEAR, terror.
G5398 PHOBEROS, fob-er-os’: From G5401; frightful, that is, (objectively) formidable: - FEARFUL, terrible.
G5156 TROMOS, trom’-os: From G5141; a “TREMBLING”, that is, quaking with fear: - + tremble (-ing).
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