YES FEAR!

By Matt Kennedy

Acts 5:11 

“Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Have you ever seen those shirts that have “No Fear!” printed on them? I remember when they first came out. I never did buy one but I liked the premise of that logo – “Fear is for wimps. I am not a wimp. I can face anything without fear. Nothing, not even you, can scare me!”


Maybe, given this particular meaning, having fear is a bad thing. Yet when we read this story of Ananias and Sapphira we see something happen that is, in my opinion, the best thing that could have happened to the church. God instills within them fear.

This made me think about the end game for God. I mean, what was he thinking? When you read a story like this one you can become so enamored by the fact that these two people drop over dead (literally) that we miss the fruit of what God’s discipline brought… FEAR.

Why fear? What is it that God wants us to be afraid of? Well, actually nothing. At least nothing with regard to the way we typically think of fear. After all “God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”

One of my go-to theologians is Wayne Grudem. He always has an answer to all my questions that challenge me or explains things in a way that help me make sense of things. So, I looked up the Fear of God in his book “Systematic Theology” just to see what he had to say. I found out he had very little to say about the ‘Fear of God’. In fact, none of the theologians I looked at had much to say about it, if they even bothered to address the issue at all. Yet what Mr. Grudem did say about the Fear of God caught me by surprise. He mentions it under the heading “Motives for Obedience to God in the Christian Life”. “Motives for Obedience?” Where was he going with this?

Well, Grudem defines the Fear of God this way: “the desire to avoid God’s displeasure and discipline on our lives”. And wouldn’t you know it; among the dozen passages he lists as biblical examples of this ‘motive for obedience’, Acts 5:11 is at the very top. After reading this I began to think about the fear of God in a whole new light. I mean how many of us when tempted to sin stop and say, “I cannot do this. It would not make God happy and I would not want to displease Him.” I confess I do not do this very much at all. Oh I’ll come up with good reasons not to, “This is sin. It would hurt more than myself. The pleasure from this sin will only last a short time. The consequences are worse than the immediate, fleeting pleasure of my actions. I’m going to get caught! Etc. ” Yet I am ashamed to admit that very few times have I ever said, “I am not going to do this bad thing because it would displease God.” I do not know many who do. Do you?

In fact, I could only think of one person who did this in all the Bible. His name is Joseph. He is the 2nd youngest of the 12 sons of Jacob. He was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually found himself the slave to a man named Potiphar. Potiphar had made Joseph head over everything in his house with the exception of his wife. Repeatedly she tried to seduce Joseph and repeatedly he refused. His reason can be found in Genesis 39:6-10 but here is the reason he gives her, v. 9 “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” He would sin against God. That was his reason. In other words, “I cannot do this because it would make God unhappy.” Joseph had the Fear of God!

So what about you? Are you afraid of God? I hope not. Do you fear Him? I hope so!