Fear and worry in the Bible

Read in this order

1. 1. Start with who is present

   What does the Bible say about fear?

   Scripture never tells a frightened person that fear is imaginary. It says do not be afraid hundreds of times, and almost always attaches a reason rather than a technique: I am with you, I have redeemed you, you are of more value than sparrows. It also distinguishes the fear that must go from the fear of the Lord, which is commanded and which shrinks every smaller fear.

   Scripture answers fear by naming God's presence and help before it says anything about feelings.

   Anxiety and Fear · About 12 minutes

2. 2. Then hear what Jesus commanded

   What does the Bible say about worry?

   Jesus forbids worry about food, drink and clothing, and he argues rather than scolds: your Father knows what you need, he feeds the birds, worry adds nothing to your life. Scripture then gives the worrier something to do, prayer with thanksgiving and casting the burden on God, and it limits the horizon to one day at a time.

   In the Sermon on the Mount worry is met with the Father's knowledge of what you need, and with today as the only day you were given.

   Anxiety and Fear · About 12 minutes

3. 3. Then take the pressing thing to God

   What does the Bible say about anxiety?

   Scripture treats anxiety with far more tenderness than most Christians expect. It names it honestly, traces it to a divided and overloaded heart, and answers it with the character of God rather than with willpower. The command not to be anxious always comes attached to a reason and to an action, never as a bare demand to feel differently.

   Philippians and 1 Peter turn anxiety into a specific action: it is told to God and left with him, and what guards you is his peace.

   Anxiety and Fear · About 17 minutes

4. 4. Then learn trust without an explanation

   How do I trust God when life is difficult?

   Biblical trust is not a feeling you generate. It is leaning your weight on what God has revealed about himself, especially when your circumstances suggest otherwise. Scripture builds trust the same way every time: by remembering what God has already done, telling him the truth about what you feel now, and obeying the next small thing while the outcome is still hidden.

   Fear rarely ends because a reason arrives. Scripture teaches trust in God's character while the reason is withheld.

   Faith and Spiritual Growth · About 16 minutes

5. 5. Finally, the fear that ends fear

   What does it mean to fear the Lord?

   The fear of the LORD is not terror of an unpredictable God. It is the reverence of a creature who has rightly understood who God is, holy, sovereign and near, and who therefore takes him seriously in every decision. Proverbs calls it the beginning of knowledge, because a person who has not reckoned with God has not yet begun to understand anything rightly.

   The Bible commands one fear while removing others, and the difference between the two is where most readers get stuck.

   Faith and Spiritual Growth · About 16 minutes

Keep these passages open

• Psalms 56:3-4Fear and trust in the same breath, not one after the other.
• Matthew 6:31-34Jesus on tomorrow, and what to seek instead.
• Philippians 4:6-7Prayer with thanksgiving, and a peace that guards.
• 1 Peter 5:6-7Anxiety cast on God because he cares.

What Scripture does not tell us

Scripture does not promise that the thing you fear will not happen, and it does not tell us why one believer is spared and another is not. It tells us who God is, what he has done in Christ, and what to do with the fear now.

Study a chapter in full

• Philippians 4

  The chapter that turns anxiety into prayer, and prayer into a guarded mind.

• Psalm 23

  Fear in the valley answered by a shepherd who is present, not absent.

Study the themes behind these questions

• Fear
• Anxiety
• Peace