In Psalms 111:10, both the King James and the Hebrew Bibles record that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The word fear in the English language means an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat.
As in other words that I compare throughout my posts, English and Hebrew words often have entirely different meanings, and the word fear is one of them.
In Hebrew the word for fear is yirah, which means to be in awe or show reverence.
In Matthew 10:28, when Yeshua was sending out the disciples, he instructed them to not fear man who could kill the body but couldn’t kill the soul, but rather, to fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Then, Christ quickly reassured them in the next verse, saying:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. But, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.
So, let’s exam this passage.
Christ is sending his beloved disciples on a very dangerous mission. He is sending them out as lambs among wolves, and he is edifying them before they leave.
Do you think that he is going to slip in the part that they need to be afraid of God who is able to destroy both the body and the soul, so they can go out trembling in the fear of failing God?
No, that is a prime example of the influence of religion on the interpretation of languages.
The King James Bible is full of it, and it becomes evident when you compare Old Testament passages with the Hebrew Bible.
Whoever put this passage together, made sure to inject the English version of the word fear into the words of Christ who spoke Aramaic/Hebrew.
If the interpreter had used the Hebrew definition of fear, the passage would have read like this:
Fear not man who can kill the body but can’t kill the soul, but rather stand in awe of God and trust in Him.
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. But, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid, because you are of more value than many sparrows.
In the post entitled, Guilt, I mentioned that because of my mother’s strict religious upbringing, she lived in a perpetual state of torment. She thought that God was continually putting her in the fire to perfect her.
Outwardly, she could not have been more perfect. She faithfully attended church and women’s Bible studies. She tithed money, and in doing so, she sacrificed her own well-being. She had no vices, only listened to praise music, and fasted continually.
She had an immense fear of God and never did see God as a loving Father who knew how many hairs were on her head. She never knew that His only desire was to lead her into that sanctuary of peace that I mentioned in the post entitled, Worship.
She had been taught as a child by old time religion that God was a scary entity. Because of the Old Testament stories, God is thought to be prone to jealousy and temper outbursts, a force to be feared.
Religion destroyed my mother. She fasted to the point of depriving herself of nutrients so badly that cancer completely metastasized throughout her entire body.
Watching her plight was very difficult. It was like watching a heroin addict self-destruct. My mother was bound by religion and afraid of God.
Is that what we are supposed to do, fear God?
The English language has done a disservice to us when it comes to the Bible.
By using the English definition of fear, it leaves a skewed picture of God and our relationship with Him, and religion is right there to capitalize upon it.
My mother lived a fearful life trying to please God the way she had been taught.
Thankfully, she is now free from the brutal bonds of religion, a trap that kept her from knowing how amazing our Father is and how much peace there is from truly knowing and walking with Him.
So, the other day I was asking my husband what he would like to see me write about and he said, “how about writing on the parable of the talents.”
While I was looking it over, I realized that my mother represented one of the servants.
After, discussing my preliminary findings with my husband, he pointed out something that I never saw before.
In the parable, Christ was talking about a master, representing God, who was going away on a journey and before leaving, he called his servants and gave them various portions of talents.
A talent was a specific measure of gold or silver.
As a side note, in the 13th century, it began to be taught that the talent was a person’s actual talents as in dance or music, etc., but that was not the original meaning in this parable.
So, the first servant received 5 talents, the second servant received 2 talents, and the third servant received 1.
The master must have known his servants well, because he gave the appropriate number of talents to each one of them according to their several ability, which in the Greek means potential.
When the master returned, the servant who had been given 5 was delighted to show him that he had doubled his gold and the master was pleased.
The same occurred with the servant who had been given two talents and the master was equally as pleased as he had been with the first servant.
Both these servants had something in common. They knew their master to be a good man, they desired to make him proud, and they put forth the work to accomplish it.
The last servant acted differently. He dug a hole and hid his talent.
When the master called him to give an account, he said, Lord, I knew you were a hard man, reaping where you have not sewn and gathering where you have not strewn. I was afraid and I hid it.
What I didn’t see before was the way that this servant viewed his master. The word hard in the Greek means cruel.
The first 2 servants believed their master or God was good and honest, a fair individual, and they revered Him, displaying the meaning of fear according to the Hebrew definition.
The last servant, not only thought that his master was cruel or evil, he stated that he believed the master was dishonest, reaping and collecting from places to which he didn’t contribute.
Because of his perception of his master, he was afraid of him. He feared his master, like the English definition of fear.
Is that what the Christian religion teaches people?
That’s what my mother certainly learned and because of her fearfulness, it caused her to be “cast out” into a place of torment.
Christ was not referring to a place of torment in the afterlife. Hell was right here on Earth for my mother, and I witnessed it.
Why was she so fearful of God?
Because, she had been taught to be. She was never able to truly know the heart of God, because she was looking through the eyes of religion.
She was blinded to the fact that God is really good. She didn’t stand in awe of God, because she didn’t see Him.
She thought God was causing all her suffering in order to refine her faith, when in reality, her suffering was a result of her bondage to the evil task master of religion.