Fear = Wisdom?

Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Are you scared of your dad? Are you frightened by your mother? Then why on earth would you need to fear God? The truth is the Bible tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; it doesn’t tell us that we must stay in fear of the Lord. In fact, the very same verse goes on to tell us that knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. It seems that fear is quickly replaced by knowledge.

Looking into Luke’s account of Jesus’ walk here on earth, we see an interesting manifestation of this very Proverb. Jesus, pressed by the crowds to the shores of Lake Gennesaret, climbed into a fishing boat with Simon Peter and had him push out a bit from shore. Peter and his fisherman friends had just come in from a hard day of fishing; they had toiled all day and caught nothing. But, at the request of Jesus, Peter shoved off from shore. Once they were out into the lake a bit Jesus delivered a sermon to the crowd.

When He was done speaking, Jesus turned to Peter and told him to cast his net over the side. Peter explained to Jesus that they’d been fishing all day and caught nothing, but he did what Jesus requested anyway. The net quickly began to fill with fish, so much so that Peter had to call his partners, who were still on shore, to come out with the other boat and help him. There was such an abundance of fish that the net was tearing and the boat began to sink!

What happened next was incredible. Peter fell to his knees in fear. He exclaimed that he was a sinful man; he cried out for Christ to depart from him. Peter called Jesus “LORD”. This fear, based on Peter’s sudden self-awareness, was the beginning of his personal revelation of who Jesus is; it was the beginning of wisdom! On the other hand, Jesus’ next words to Peter, “Do not be afraid,” (Luke 5:10) were a gift of knowledge of the Holy One. They were the beginning of understanding.

It’s too easy to get caught up in the fear stage of who God is and never move into the understanding part of our relationship. The truth is: fear of the Lord is only the beginning of our relationship. Christ doesn’t want us to live a life in fear of Him. What kind of relationship would that be?

I think that the most interesting piece of this story is how Jesus revealed Peter’s sinfulness. Rather than telling him what he was doing wrong in his life and pointing out his flaws, Jesus graciously revealed Peter’s sin nature by blessing him with boat sinking load of fish! This is what brings about the fear of the Lord; this is the beginning of wisdom: a full-on revelation of the grace of God! Think about that for a moment.

Christ does not want us to stay in a state of fear either. Through the revelation of His grace we know that we are sinful people, but we don’t have to dwell on that. Christ didn’t let Peter dwell on his sinfulness. He stopped the fear immediately after it began. The same holds true in today’s world. Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)!

Likewise, the way that Christ brings that wisdom into your life and mine is the same now as it was for Peter. Jesus isn’t out there in the world looking to destroy families, careers, or health in order to reveal our true nature. A full-on revelation of the grace of God is all that is needed to push a person to the beginning of wisdom. Immediately fear must be replaced with an ever increasing knowledge of the Holy One, that is, Jesus Christ, and His finished work.

For that grace revelation we don’t need to look any further than the cross. When we behold the broken, mangled, naked, Christ, rejected by His friends and countrymen hanging in shame to die as a curse before all mankind, we see grace! The Son of the Creator forsaken by His Father to save you and me is all the revelation of grace we need. We don’t need to be told how bad we are in order to realize how awesome God is; we just need to be told how awesome God is. How gracious is our God? Even in revealing our flaws and shortcomings God uses grace!