He heard the phrase before he could read and it has meant one thing his whole life.
It has meant: be careful. It has meant that God is watching and that there is a version of Him that is angry, and that the point of the Christian life is not to arrive at that version.
Nobody said it in those words. It arrived through tone. It arrived through which verses got read aloud at a certain moment, and through what happened in a room when somebody had done something, and through a particular quality of silence that a child learns to interpret at about six.
So the fear of God, for him, is a colored word. He cannot get near it. It sits in the same drawer as being in trouble, and he has quietly avoided the whole subject for fifteen years while remaining entirely devout.
And here is the thing that turned it over for me: if the fear of God were what he thinks it is, the things Scripture says it produces would make no sense at all.
The first outcome is teaching
Here is the passage, and it is built as a question and then a list.
What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. (Psalm 25:12, King James Version)
Him shall he teach. That is the first thing attached, and it is instruction rather than warning.
And in the way that he shall choose, which is a phrase about direction being given at the point where a person has options. It is the language of somebody being walked through a decision rather than being warned off one.
Now hold that beside the version in the drawer. If the fear of God were dread of an angry version of Him, then the outcome attached to it would be avoidance, and the psalm would say: him shall he leave alone. It says the opposite. The relationship gets closer as a result.
You are inside a fear whose first named outcome is being taught. Psalm 25:12 attaches teaching to it directly, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who is named as the one who guides into truth.
The second outcome is ease
The next verse is about what happens to a person's life, and it is domestic.
His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. (Psalm 25:13)
Dwell at ease. That is not what dread produces. Dread produces vigilance, and a person under it does not dwell anywhere; they perch.
And dwell is a settled word. It is about a house rather than a position, about somebody who has put things on shelves.
I want to be careful not to make this soft, because the fear of God is not a mild thing and Scripture never treats it as one. But whatever it is, it is described as producing settledness in the person who has it, which rules out the version in the drawer entirely, because that version produces the opposite and everybody who has it knows that it does.
You are inside a fear that produces settledness rather than vigilance. Psalm 25:13 says his soul shall dwell at ease, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:6, that to be spiritually minded is described as life and peace.
The third outcome is confidential counsel
And then the verse this article is named for.
The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant. (Psalm 25:14)
The secret of the LORD. The Hebrew word is about a circle of close counsel, the conversation that continues after the general meeting has ended, the things said among people who are trusted.
Nobody gives that to somebody they are managing. A man does not tell his confidences to an employee whose loyalty he doubts, and God is described here as handing them to the very people this fear is operating in.
And he will shew them his covenant, which is an explanatory move: not just the terms, but the reasoning, the thing behind the arrangement.
Put the three together and you have teaching, settledness and confidence. That is a description of intimacy, and it is what the fear of the LORD is said to produce, and any version of the phrase that produces distance is being defined by something other than this passage.
You are offered the confidential counsel as the outcome rather than distance. Psalm 25:14 says the secret of the LORD is with them that fear him, and it is the Spirit who searches the deep things of God, 1 Corinthians 2:10, and makes them known.
Proverbs calls it a place to hide
Proverbs adds an image that is almost the opposite of what the colored word suggests.
In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge. (Proverbs 14:26)
A place of refuge. The fear itself is described as the shelter. Not: the fear drives you toward a shelter. The fear is the shelter, and the children of the man who has it get to be in it.
That inverts the picture completely. In the version from the drawer, God is the weather and a person is looking for somewhere to stand. Here the standing place is the fear of Him.
I think what is actually happening is that fear of God, correctly understood, is the recognition of who is largest, and a person who genuinely knows who is largest has nowhere left to be frightened of, which is what makes it a refuge rather than a threat.
You are able to be inside this fear rather than under it. Proverbs 14:26 calls it strong confidence and a place of refuge, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:15, that a person receives the Spirit of adoption rather than bondage again to fear.
The New Testament puts it in a sentence with comfort
There is a description of the early church that has both words in one line, and nobody arranged that on purpose.
Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied. (Acts 9:31)
In the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
Two prepositional phrases, joined by and, describing the same people at the same time in the same sentence. Luke is not balancing two opposites. He is describing one condition from two angles.
That verse is the answer to a man who has kept this word in a drawer for fifteen years. Whatever the fear of the Lord is, it is compatible with comfort, because a whole region of churches is described as walking in both simultaneously, and it produced multiplication rather than paralysis.
You are able to walk in both at once, and Scripture describes whole churches doing it. Acts 9:31 puts the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost in one clause, and it is that same Holy Ghost named there as the source of the comfort.
So do one small right thing this week that nobody in your family will approve of or notice.
Version of the fear of God I was handed, you are not what Scripture describes. Psalm 25:12 attaches teaching to it and verse 14 attaches confidential counsel, and it is the Spirit who searches the deep things of God, 1 Corinthians 2:10, and makes them known.
You are able to walk in this fear and in comfort at the same time. Acts 9:31 puts both in one clause about the same churches, and it is the Holy Ghost named in that verse as the source of the comfort.
I am not going to tell you the tone from childhood goes. The woman in the parable is fifty-two and says she does not expect to resolve it, and what she has instead is a list in her own handwriting.
What is settled is that the secret of the LORD is with them that fear him (Psalm 25:14), and it is by His Spirit rather than by a corrected memory that the counsel is actually given.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over this is genuinely yours, given to you and never invented. Scripture attaches teaching, settledness and confidential counsel to the fear of the LORD, which rules out the version that arrived through tone, so speak to the word you have kept in a drawer: you have standing to address it because God listed the outcomes first. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own opinion, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Psalm 25:14 and Acts 9:31 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not how you were taught to hear the phrase, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Version of the fear of God I was handed, you are not what Scripture describes. The Word of God says the secret of the LORD is with them that fear him, and it means the counsel that continues after the meeting ends.
- Drawer I have kept this word in, you are finished in the name of Jesus. I walk in the fear of the Lord and in comfort together, because Acts 9:31 puts both in one clause, and the Holy Ghost is named there as the source of it.
- Abba, You teach the man that feareth You in the way that he shall choose, and Psalm 25:12 puts teaching first on the list. I receive Your counsel today, and I am doing one small right thing this week that nobody in my family will approve of or notice.
Psalm 25:12-14
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