The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Statements of Paul

1 Corinthians 2
New International Version (NIV)
2 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. :astonished:

now it must be asked, that given the generally accepted christian concept that fear and closeness to the Lord don’t exactly go hand in hand, how exactly does one make sense of the above verse ? I mean this is the apostle Paul himself for goodness sakes !,

surely if anyone was ‘‘filled with the holy spirit’’ it was him yet here he makes it clear he was filled with fear ! taking aside the arguments of, this wasn’t written by him (in other words for the sake of the argument lets assume all is a-ok)
I guess this opens up a whole other can of worms, and possibly topple anther popular notion. :smiley:

ok so perhaps I should have ended the above post with a question

:laughing:

do you ever suffer from fear ? or understand that to varying degree’s it is a perfectly natural thing ?

“Fear” is not always a bad thing, in fact it can even be a positive motivator, e.g., I have a healthy *fear *of driving through red traffic lights, hence I don’t – that works for everyone’s benefit.

:slight_smile:

I understand that, but I do believe my above point is in an entirely different category !, here was ‘‘the man’’ himself Paul supposedly filled to the brim with the holy spirit, yet he was filled with fear ? :wink: :question:

Hi Stuartd,
Acts 18 gives insight into the early situation in Corinth that Paul is probably referring to here.Initially arguing in the synagogue weekly he persuaded both Jews and Greeks, however this got too much for many Jews and there was rebellion. Paul washed his hands of them and moved to a Gentile house next door belonging to a gentile Titus Justus and began preaching to the gentiles.
One can imagine with the rebellious Jews and the unknown prospect of Gentile reception Paul would have reason to fear.Indeed we read :
Act 18:9 Now the Lord said to Paul, in the night, through a vision, "Fear not! but be speaking; and you should not be silent,
Act 18:10 because I am with you, and no one shall place hands on you to illtreat you, because there are many people of Mine in this city. As a result he stayed on 18 months.
In response to your question, though IMO being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn’t exempt us from normal human responses to situations.
Being given the courage and strength by the Spirit in spite of the fear, in those situations, I believe, is more the case.

Perhaps you have in mind the text 1Jn4:18 that speaks of perfect love casting out fear. I think the context speaks in the context of not fearing God and judgment in light of His love for us and in us.

That’s my thoughts. I wish I could say I speak from experience, as I consider myself a thoroughly fearful christian to my shame!
Cheers S

I understand that, but I do believe my above point is in an entirely different category !, here was ‘‘the man’’ himself Paul supposedly filled to the brim with the holy spirit, yet he was filled with fear ? :wink: :question:

Yeah I think in reality for all Paul’s apparent bravado at times he also shows that he is fully just like the rest of us, i.e., he knew what it was like to be afraid… yet in spite or despite this he pushes on. This tells me Paul was a normal human being.

John, as “the apostle of love” may have been stronger in the matter of perfect love casting out fear than Paul or others. (Just speculation, though.) I think it’s important to realize that none of us; not Paul (who was a man, like unto yourselves, as was Elijah), not John, not James, not even Junia :wink: are yet perfected in love. So John’s statement that a sense of fear is evidence that we are in fact NOT yet perfected in love can’t really be checked against the statements or experience of mere humans, even including Paul. That doesn’t mean there’s no point to pressing in to that perfection. God desires and will have us perfect (mature).

I like Sturmy’s point that sometimes we may FEEL fear (a normal human emotion and very likely caused by hormones as much as any lack in perfection of love) and yet, as Jesus did, display courage in going forth to do the Father’s will regardless. Fear (in that sense) and cowardice are not the same thing. So that emotion of fear is cast out by our (His) understanding and heart knowledge of the Father’s PERFECT love toward us. It isn’t OUR perfect love that casts out fear, imo. Any genuine Godlike love that may dwell within us has its source in Him. It is our knowledge and experience of His perfect love that drives out fear and creates that love within our own hearts.

And truly, there IS no need for fear when He has perfected His love in our hearts. We will obey Him out of love. Fear may be okay as an interim tutor, but love is His goal.

I think that Paul’s point is that we are dealing with the infinitely loving, but the infinitely powerful.

It’s the same feeling that I have felt sitting in a small aeroplane. There are passengers here who are trusting their lives to me, and safety depends on my having done the preflight correctly, on my reading every instrument on the panel, and on my ability to respond correctly if something goes badly wrong. When I start pushing the throttle open I feel a tension which is simply fear. Not fear of someone’s anger, just a healthy respect for the fact that we shall shortly be doing seventy knots, sitting behind a very hot engine and with forty or fifty gallons of petrol a couple of feet away.

Fear, yes. Fear of someone bad, no.

thank-you for your imput :sunglasses:

good answer thankyou, agreed :slight_smile:

you hit the nail with the above highlighted :wink: there are a whole host of situations where (if one were to stand up against) would cause fear yet to not do so in my opinion IS cowardice

just make sure that ejector seat is in working order and you have a shoot :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

there have been numerous studies that has shown that most people would prefer to face death than public speaking !

I can very much understand that fear :mrgreen: