Fear and Trembling

I was asked a question about Philippians 2:12, 13.

Q: Isn’t Paul’s directive to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” contradictory against all the “do not be afraid” passages of the Bible? And how would we handle a daily life of “fear and trembling”?

The question illustrates two common errors: (1) we really don’t know who the Lord is, so we’re misunderstanding his ways; and (2) we puzzle over a tiny phrase of Scripture without putting it in the full context.

Let’s look at that passage as relates to these two errors.

When we get the whole context of Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians, the “fear and trembling” meaning is clearer, and not at all contradicting “do not be afraid” Scriptures. So read the entire letter in one sitting. This is what we don’t seem to be doing—letting the Scripture explain itself in context.

Consider these bits from the whole Philippians letter:

• 1:6 — Paul sees the Lord helping these Christians continue to grow, not threatening them.
• 1:27 — Maybe Paul worries that they’re leaning too much on him to feed them information instead of continuing to study/grow on their own. Paul says, basically, “Whether I’m there with you or not… stand firm.” (And 2:12 is another mention of the irrelevance of Paul’s presence or absence.)
• 1:28 — Mentions fear, but the context is “without being frightened by” the intimidation bound to come from opponents of Christianity. So of course Paul would push the “stand firm” message of 1:27. Standing firm was sure to be tough, given the pagan Roman rule/culture.
• 3:12-14 — Paul says two times, “I press on.” This indicates effort is required for this spiritual battle. Army soldiers are not in paranoid terror of a great commander. But they do reverence/“fear” him, know the importance of the battle, know the danger from the enemy, etc. Matthew Henry’s commentary sees the “fear and trembling” of 2:12, 13 as “diligence and seriousness.” Pressing on. Believers may face persecution, so Paul is not downplaying reality; things won’t be fluffy. Remember how wrong Paul himself had once been, even trying to kill Christians (Acts 8:1-3). Keeping that in mind when we read the whole book of Philippians highlights Paul’s deep concern. I’ll add that when we take the Lord’s way seriously and realize the benefits, it makes us (should make us) want to help others get on that true path.
• Chapter 4 — Some specifics of what the Christian life looks like AND some of the difficulties we encounter.

It’s clear that Paul’s message meshes with—and doesn’t contradict—the Lord’s encouraging “do not be afraid” passages throughout the Bible (ex: Psalm 56:4).

Also consider: is a legit relationship with the Lord one in which we’re always nervous (“trembling”) that he’s about to check us off his list? When we know who the Lord is, there’s no way we’d picture the Lord shaking his fist at us and threatening, “I hope you’re scared to death of me, you little snips!” Compare the description of the Lord in this “Perfect Father, Commander, Coach” post.

Remember this description of our relationship with the Lord: “We know that we live in [God] and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit…. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us…. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:13-18).

Now we DO experience a cool kind of “fear and trembling”—in the sense of awe—when we stop and ponder that the Lord Almighty, creator of the universe, is with us. Goosebumps!

The Bible can, so often, explain itself. We need to spend more time there. And that’s the solution to most of our problems with interpreting Scripture.