Friday, October 23, 2009

Make Like a Berean

(If you don't get the title check out Acts 17:11.)



Should we fear God’s discipline, while we are under the New Covenant and thereby living under grace? And what is the meaning of “fearing God," when we are now told that perfect love casts out all fear? It’s not as if we’re in the Old Testament, where the relationship with God and His people was less intimate and based more on fear and faith rather than the person of Jesus Christ.

To place these questions in a more real-life scenario, imagine that your friends invited you to a casino. You aren’t quite crossing the line when it comes to sin, but lately, you’ve been hop scotching on it. You know that gambling isn’t explicitly banned in the Bible for New Covenant Christians. In fact, casting lots is even mentioned in the Old Testament as an activity of the priests. At the same time, you realize that because of all the verses on how we should spend our money wisely, and not love the pursuit of money, it’s probably not the wisest thing you should be doing. But, you reason, we’re living under grace. You shouldn’t be afraid, should you? To the pure all things are pure, right? Tell me, would it then be legalistic and wrong for you to contemplate—even fear—God’s consequences for your actions?


What do you do? I have friends who gamble, and I have friends who are adamantly against it. I'm not trying to tackle the gambling question. Rather, I'm concerned about the rationale in the example. Is the fear of consequences a form of legalism?


I don't have a straightforward answer to whether, in some sense, the fear of the Lord ends in the New Covenant. While I have a hunch about the answer, it's an issue I intend to search out further before forming a firm conclusion.

Thanks to Scripture, I do know a little bit: In Philippians 2:12, Christians are told to approach living out their salvation with "fear and trembling." Obviously, this means there is a good kind of fear that should still persist in us. In Hebrews 12:6, it says that God disciplines His children, meaning that God does sometimes mete out pain to his children as consequences for their actions; this discipline, however, is contrasted to eternal punishment, which was forever removed from the options list because of Christ's death.

So what does it mean to fear the Lord, while walking in grace? Care to weigh in?