dar334

Last night we, The Disciple Group, finished the study by David Jeremiah titled “Revealing the Mysteries of Heaven”.  I’ve had the privilege of studying with this group since the fall of 2013 when we started Disciple 1.  Over the last 5 years, some people have left and some new people have joined in.   Some, including me, missed a study or two along the way, but have remained a part of the group.  Like any group, we have the leaders, the listeners, the comics, and the confused, which is where I fall in.  We have two that fall under the “leader” roll, whether they like it or not.  We have our own dearly loved “Joseph”, who is soft spoken and humble, with a knowledge capacity off the charts.  He brings a vast amount of theological information to the table.  We have our very own “David”, raised in an entirely different religious household, who is  great at making us think “outside the box”, also with a high intelligence.  For the “confused”, it takes several attempts to understand what either of them are saying, thus causing other information to be missed or causing a disruption when finally there may be a flicker of understanding.

I’m not certain what triggered David last night to ask if any of us had looked up the definition of “fear”, but when he posed that question, had you been listening closely, you would have heard me take a slow deep breath and hold it for a second or two, then exhale, followed by “Oh crap.”  Fear is a four letter word.  I’d like to think I have a pretty good grasp on the meaning of four letter words.  It’s the five or more letter words that generally hang me up.

Fear, for me, means “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat”, which is the common understanding of the word.   So when I hear “Fear God”, I’m taking it as “If you don’t obey you are likely to feel pain”, which totally goes along with “the Fear of Mom”.  Upon further research, we found a “Biblical” meaning for the word.  Again I’m reminded the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and in the translation to English, there aren’t always the right words.    Courtesy of the internet, I found out that ten Hebrew nouns and eight Hebrew verbs are regularly translated to “fear”.  It then goes on to tell me “The fundamental and original idea expressed by these terms covers a semantic range from mild easiness to stark terror, depending on the object of the fear and circumstances surrounding the experience.”  After reading several more five plus letter words I gleaned this:  “While the normal meaning of fear as dread or terror is retained in the theological use of the terms, a special nuance of reverential awe or worshipful respect becomes the dominant notion.”

In order to tie this up, I guess it’s best if sometimes we “fear” Him, and the other times we “fear” Him.

Pondering should come with the follow warning “May cause headaches”.

-dar