Ethnocentrism and Fearing God
For those who live in America, we don’t have a culture that really understands fearing an authority figure. We don’t have a king or chief and we are able to openly deride our President if we feel like it. Even our propensity towards nonchalant interactions leads to a lack of hierarchy. So when we come to passages in the Bible where it commands us to fear the Lord, we explain it away by saying stuff like, ‘It just means that we should show him respect or honor.’ Really? I don’t think that is it because if it meant respect or honor, it would have used those words.
We don’t realize how ingrained our culture is into our understanding of what is right and wrong. Often times it can blind us to insight into what the Bible means or even making it incomprehensible. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone pose the seemingly paradoxical question, ‘How can we fear God and love him at the same time?’ I don’t want to get into the answer of that right now, partially because I don’t have time and partially because I am working through it myself, but the point is we need to own up to the fact that often our reasoning and cultural understanding can be in stark contrast to what God may be deserving of, namely that we are to fear Him.
P.S. - This post was spurned on by reading Malachi 1:14 this morning with my wife and also the end of Ecclesiastes.
