It's More Theological Than You Think...

• A couple refuses to admit their marriage is in trouble.
• A father fails to stand up to his own children.
• An employee is pressured into an unethical decision by his boss.
• A child is terrified because she must be in front of a large group of people at her recital.
• A high school student stays up until 2 am on the phone with his girlfriend.
• A man purchases a car he cannot afford so his neighbors don’t leave him behind.
• A college student goes somewhere she should not with her friends, because she is too embarrassed to say “no."
• A wife never hosts anyone, because she is afraid they won’t be impressed by her home.

The scenarios I have offered above may seem innocently random, and thus call for unrelated solutions. To the contrary, I am convinced there is a common thread that nastily runs right through them. Each of these fruit problems comes from the root of a particular sin: the fear of man. Man fear is a root sin that often remains hidden - but its bile regularly spills out into the open and has a way of contaminating just about everything.

I was helped to see this sin with new eyes about a decade ago, when a truly life-changing book was recommended to me. The work was When People Are Big and God Is Small, and it was authored by Ed Welch. In addition to serving as my introduction to the great tradition of biblical counseling, the book helped me understand myself by pointing to a devastating diagnosis in my spiritual life. I have read it several times since. The logic of this diagnosis comes straight from the pages of God's Word. Two passages come to mind that are especially appropriate as they are referenced and unpacked in the book:

"The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe." - Proverbs 29:25

"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." - Matthew 10:28

In the book, Welch defines the fear of man this way: "'Fear’ in the biblical sense includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people.” Welch does not suggest that all fear is sinful, but posits this important qualifier: we are sinning when the fear of people controls our lives more than the fear of the Lord.

This contrast (as you have probably figured out from the book's title - an intentional dead giveaway) is between the fear of man and the fear of God. Underneath our fear then is the contest between our view of man and our view of God, as is especially clear in the aforementioned words of Jesus in Matthew 10:28.

Thus Ed Welch, Bible grasped firmly in hand as he works, helps the reader evaluate the extent of this sin in his life, revealing the surprising and not so surprising packages in which the fear of man comes. He pulls few punches as the book takes an uninhibited romp through your personal, social, familial, and thought life. So consider yourself warned. But the book works toward another end, just as insightful and far more glorious: Welch uses the Bible to give you a taste for a bigger view of God. After all if our fear and worship (the two are inseparable) are given to people more than God, and if the God we claim to know made the world (Genesis 1:1) controls everything in it (Daniel 4:35) and will be worshipped for eternity (Revelation 4:9) then it is not difficult to conclude that we must not think about him very much, or quite accurately when we do. This is Welch's conclusion and he goes to great pains helping the attentive reader address this.

What fear-related problem is wreaking havoc in your life? It's probably more theological than you think. And if the problem is theological perhaps the solution will be as well.

When People Are Big and God Is Small is our November book of the month. I heartily commend it to you, and suggest you secure a copy this Lord's Day, to be helped by its Scriptural wisdom for the problems of life.