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Not quite. Fear has to do with punishment.
No. Jesus taught us to love our enemies.ohhh, you mean seven times hotter or a slow roast?
It's not like that. Fear of the Lord is giving Him what is rightfully due to Him......because He is utterly worthy. Extortion is taking what is not due to you. God only wants from us what is rightfully His.....we have been bought with a price......and giving Him His due is for our good. It's a win-win!
Just to be clear, I am charging the church with spiritual extortion, not God.
Not argument, really.
Perhaps you are the one with the argument here?
The story of Abigail and Nabal is coming to mind this morning, and the lessons we are to learn from that, oh my! David being a type of Christ, our Lord and King. Nabal, being a foolish man, had no fear of David and did not give him what was rightfully due to him........Abigail having fear and gratitude for David gave him all that she could and so saved her household from the destruction that was due it. And it resulted in David taking her to wife....that's about as close and intimate to the Lord as one can get, I would think, being His Bride. Because she had feared him, in the end she no longer needed to be afraid of what He might do in anger. It's like as long as you stay behind the lion in subjection to him you are safe from his teeth, but don't get in his face whatever you do - that would not be WISE. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of WISDOM - we better know WHO we are dealing with here and what is therefore due to Him.
I'm not thinking of hell in Medieval terms, just trying to look at it biblically. Hell in the bible is Hades, Gehenna, death, the grave. A place of torment for a period time, but not necessarily forever (as I tentatively consider)....just until the second death, which is death of the soul at some time after the death of the body which I believe we can understand to be the first death. Death and hell itself will be annihilated in the lake of fire after it has served its purpose. Our God is a consuming fire. And Jesus did make mention of the destruction of the soul.
Are humans responsible for their reactions to trying situations? Yes, of course.
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You ask a lot of philosophizing questions but don't actually address the scriptures. The jealousy of the Lord IS higher than man's. His jealousy and anger is not selfish and of the flesh like that of man's.....it is a righteous and holy jealousy, based on what is righteous and holy, as HE is righteous and holy.Are humans responsible for their reactions to trying situations? Yes, of course.
We know that jealousy is a sin, to be dealt with accordingly.
And we provide help for anger management issues.
Does God operate by a lower standard of behavior than he holds us to?
I thought is ways were higher than ours. ???
Have you seen this topic?
If our interpretation of scripture sidesteps common sense, did we get it right?
We've all heard the vacuous mantra: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." What does this communicate parenthetically? "It doesn't need to make sense, I just need to accept it." ??? (with a shrug?) Do we really need to check our brain at the door when we go to church? There are...
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The paradox is that we need the fear of the Lord to get to where we don't need to fear so to speak. Work out our salvation with fear and trembling! We are to be perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord! (so says the scriptures) Don't go around telling people they have nothing to fear from God! That's a lie and would be taking away and nullifying something vital that we need! Fear of the Lord is for our good, not our hurt!
So, God is allowed to do things without impunity that are a sin for us, simply because he is God?
Are we allowed to put limits on our patience?
This is how religion seeks to control people.
Well, you better have a read of 2 Peter 3.
I do wonder what you do with all those times in the bible it talks about having the fear of the Lord. How do you render those teachings? Do you know that even Jesus was heard in that He feared? (bible - Heb 5:7)
I think the questions are more important than the answers.
Do you understand where the Bible came from?
