What Does It Mean to Fear the Lord
What does it mean to fear the Lord in the Bible? Short answer. To fear the Lord is to take God seriously as God, holy, sovereign, and good, rather than treating him as a vague comfort or an equal to be managed. It isn't cowering dread, the kind that makes you want to run. It's closer to standing at the edge of a cliff, or watching lightning split the sky: your smallness becomes obvious, and so does his greatness. Proverbs calls this 'the beginning of wisdom' (Proverbs 9:10) because you can't understand anything rightly, yourself, your sin, your need, until you've understood who you're dealing with. It reorders your loves. It doesn't replace love for God; it grounds it. It's Awe Before Someone Holy, Not Dread of Random Harm When Isaiah is given a vision of God in the temple, his first words aren't wonder, they're panic: 'Woe is me! For I am lost... for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!' (Isaiah 6:5, ESV). That's the...