Monday, October 1, 2007

A fear (not) blog?

This idea of a Fear (not) blog was born out of a study that I did in Zambia in preparation for a sermon to a church on the occassion of a graduation from an HIV/AIDS training class. I looked at the classic story between David and Goliath and began to get intrigued by the word fear. I did some word studies and concordance comparisons. I had heard before that this command in the Bible "Fear Not" was the most oft-commanded verse in the entire Bible. But only after really studying this concept did it really hit me how practical and important this was for the Christian life and especially my life. So I decided to do a blog where I would progress canonically through the Bible looking for the verses that say, "Fear not!" As I would daily look through verses with the word fear in it, I noticed something else. There were just as many commands to fear not as there were commands to fear God and God only. I guess I had never see that before. I had heard that their were 365 verses in the bible commanding us to fear not. I have counted them up and I don't see it. But, as I went through the entire Bible and to my delight and astonishment, there were over 365 verses that talked about either fearing God or commanding us to not fear man. And they really are a one or the other. We are commanded to fear God and fear nothing else. Period. We can't fear something on earth and still fear a sovereign God. So, be encouraged, exhorted and check back daily because there are over 365 verses in the Bible that encourage us to fear (not), enough for a verse for each day.