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Proverbs 29:25 | “Whom Do You Fear?, Part 2 of 3”
The Fear of the Lord
Last week we talked about the fear of the Lord and how it has to be the energizing center of our lives if we want to experience any real and lasting change. As Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,” and “the fear of the Lord leads to life” (14:27, 19:23).
We discussed how the fear of the Lord is a spectrum of attitudes before God, from terror to worship, and how it’s meant to be the organizing principle in the center of our lives, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (9:10). I said the fear of the Lord is when God becomes the biggest thing in your life, when he’s no longer a concept but the main passion of your life.
Many of us want this kind of heart-posture but it feels so elusive and impossible to attain and maintain. This is because the fear of Lord doesn’t grow uncontested in our hearts. It isn’t unopposed or it would be flourishing in our lives. So what opposes the fear of the Lord in our hearts? What keeps us from living there consistently?
Today I want us to consider the opposite of the fear of the Lord, or what opposes its growth in our lives. Next week, we’ll consider what the fear of the Lord produces in our lives and how to grow in it.
The Fear of Man
So what opposes the fear of the Lord in our lives? It’s actually another kind of fear, the fear of man. This is one of the main areas the Lord is sanctifying me. I struggle with fear of man daily, so I’m not a spiritual guru who’s reached sanctification nirvana, but a fellow struggler with you.
What is the fear of man? Ed Welch defines it simply as when “we replace God with people.”[1] It goes by other names, like peer pressure or people pleasing. Whatever we call it, we must understand that the fear of man is a prison and keeps us from the freedom of the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare; but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
What Does the Fear of Man Look Like?
The fear of man can be hard to spot and may be submerged under or camouflaged by our impressive resumes or abilities or perceived successes. Because of this, Welch provides lots of diagnostic questions to help us see fear of man in our lives:[2]
Are you overcommitted? Do you find it hard to say “no” to things wisdom would indicate you should? Do you struggle to say “no” to people you love out of fear of hurting the relationship?
Are you hyper-concerned or hyper-sensitive about what others think of you?
Do you mostly talk about successes and not much about failures? Are most of your conversations with church members, close friends, or family surface level?
Are you afraid of making mistakes that will make you look bad in other people’s eyes?
Are you always second-guessing decisions because of what other people might think?
Do you struggle to confront sin in other people’s lives?
Are there things about yourself that you’re committed to not tell anyone? Are there sins you confess to God but not to anyone else?
Are you easily embarrassed?
Do you ever lie, especially the little white lies, to make yourself look better or to avoid embarrassment?
Do you often become like a chameleon to fit in with whatever people you’re around?
Do you look for people’s approval by trying to sound like the smartest person in the room, or using humor to get people to like you, or over-spiritualizing things to appear godly?
Are you quick to criticize and point out flaws and slow to encourage?
When you compare yourself with other people, do you feel good about yourself?
Do you avoid people?
Does any of this resonate with you? In their devotional on Proverbs 29:25, Tim and Kathy Keller add a few more ways fear of man shows up in our lives:
“If we look to human beings more than God for our worth and value, we will be trapped by anxiety, by an overneed to please, by the inability to withdraw from exploitative relationships, by the inability to take criticism, and by a cowardice that makes us unable to confront others. Our feelings will be easily hurt and we will tend to overcommit out of a desire for acceptance. The devastation that comes from the fear of man has many forms. It includes parents who are afraid to discipline their children and employees who are unable to call out corruption in their companies…Who’s approval is functionally more important to you than God’s?”[3]
Our hearts are full of the fear of man, or the desire to put people in the place of God. Like weeds in a garden, the fear of man chokes out the fear of the Lord and keeps it from growing in our hearts. And serving the functional lord of human approval leaves us exhausted and empty and anxious and angry. “The fear of man lays of snare” (Pro. 29:25).
Specific Reasons Why We Fear Other People
Welch says there are several reasons why we fear other people more than God. Two of them are that we fear people because they can expose us and because they can reject us.[4]
“People Will See Me”
First, we fear people because we think they’ll expose us. The fear is, “People will see me.” One of the most fundamental lies we believe is that if people really knew me, if they really saw me, they’d reject me. So we hide. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we don’t want our nakedness exposed, so we hide in order to avoid humiliation.
Our sin and sins committed against us make us feel vulnerable so we’re desperate for covering and protection. The gaze of a holy God and the gaze of unholy people is a threat to us so we frantically hide to protect ourselves. Like Adam and Eve, our shame sends us into hiding.
This is one reason why we don’t like to be open with people, why we give the significantly edited version when people ask how we are. We prefer walls of self-protection to hide behind. These walls could be our jobs, money, intelligence, accomplishments, kids or grandkids, ministry, or our busyness.
As Adam and Eve found out, the problem is that nothing man-made can truly cover our shame. Even if we find the best hiding spot, God still sees and we still feel worthless.
As we hide out of fear of exposure, something else happens in our hearts. Even though we’re hiding, we like to spy on others. Welch says that apparently the walls we hide behind have little cracks that allow us to see outside. So while we’re hiding, we’re spying.
Why do we spy? Because seeing the vulnerability of others helps us feel better about ourselves. While we’re hiding we deflect attention away from our sin and shame by pointing it out in others. We try to cover ourselves by uncovering others. This is especially prevalent in abusive relationships, when an abuser is preoccupied with the failings of others but refuses to see their own. While it’s easy to spot this plank in an abuser’s eye, we all have specks of this behavior in our eyes.
Welch goes on to say that we also spy because we want to find someone out there who’s strong and who can be our hero. We don’t want to stay hidden, we want to be rescued! Finding a hero would make us feel less isolated. This is why fantasy is a popular past time while we’re hiding. We run to another world hoping to find relief from the pain of this one.
Our shame creates fear of man which creates hiding. Much of our hiding happens in plain sight in the form of image-management. We work hard to project an image of strength to cover our weakness. We carefully craft an image that covers our flaws and promotes our perfections.
The fear of our shame being exposed sends us into hiding because we’re desperate for safety. This is driven by the fear of man or looking to people rather than God to cover you.
“People Will Reject Me”
Second, we fear people because we think they’ll reject us. Welch says this is perhaps the most common reason we fear other people. Memories from our childhood remind us how much we hate rejection because it hurts so badly. Whether it was not being chosen or being chosen last for the team during recess, not being asked to the dance, not getting the part in the play, seeing siblings get special treatment, having a best friend decide to be friends with someone else, or having your mom or dad leave your family for someone else, these things leave their mark. As a result, usually subconsciously, we do what we must to never be rejected again.
Even into adulthood, we experience rejection. Whether it’s a college professor who overlooks us for an award, not being invited to the party, not getting the job, seeing a coworker get a promotion instead of us, having an engagement broken off, a spouse who leaves, a child who rebels, or friends who grow cold and distant over time, we feel the sting of rejection. We worry that people won’t be pleased with us, that they’ll ignore us, won’t like us, will be annoyed by us, or will withhold acceptance and love from us. All this makes us feel worthless and sends us into isolation because at least there we can’t be rejected. We attempt to reject rejection through isolation, only to find that in isolation the feeling and fear of rejection doesn’t go away.
This sort of fear of man has been around forever. Moses told Israel, “You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgement is God’s” (Deut. 1:17). Moses knew that people would struggle with honoring some people over others because they feared being rejected by those they considered more important. So there were laws against favoritism. Judges must not revere those who seem more important or more powerful or more wealthy or more attractive or more intelligent. They must govern in the fear of the Lord, not the fear of man.
In Jesus’ day, there were some who believed in him but they feared confessing their faith in him publicly. Why? John 12:42-43 tells us, “Many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” They had faith but they feared what the Pharisees might do, so they stayed quiet. John says the reason was because they “loved” the praise that comes from people more than God’s glory. They feared the rejection of men more than they feared God.
The fear of rejection shows up in our lives in many ways. Perhaps the most common way this rejection fear shows up in our lives is through people-pleasing. Being a people-pleaser means you’re constantly thinking about how to make people like you and constantly avoiding things that may upset people. As kids and teenagers, we do so many things simply because we want to fit in. But adults are no different, we just learn to hide it better. We also think about how to make people like us and are careful not to upset people. We spend time worrying about what others think about our outfit or hair or car or apartment or house or kids or sermon. We worry about comments or questions we raised in class or small group, wondering what people thought of us. Our brains are consistently analyzing whether people like us or not.
Billy Graham said that when he was young he worried a lot about what people thought of him, but as he got older he realized no one was thinking of him!
The opposite of a people-pleaser is a people-lover, and Jesus is of course a perfect example of this. Even his enemies could see it. They said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and that you teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances” (Mt. 22:16). Of course, they were saying this to flatter him, but they’d noticed something true about Jesus. Jesus didn’t show favoritism. He reached out to the rich and poor, male and female, Jew and Gentile. He didn’t take a poll to see what was popular and then do that. Instead, he humbly yet courageously acted and spoke in ways that exalted God and loved people.
Paul also was a people-lover, not a people-pleaser. He didn’t change his message based on what others would think. He was even willing to confront a good friend, Peter, when Peter wasn’t walking in step with the gospel (Gal. 2:14). Only people-lovers are able to confront because they aren’t controlled by other people. Paul told the Galatians that if he were trying to please man, he wouldn’t be serving Christ (1:10). He didn’t live to please man. He lived to please Christ.
Welch points out that the thing shame-fear and rejection-fear have in common is that in each case people are our favorite idol. We either worship them as those with God-like gazes (shame-fear) or as those with a God-like ability to fill us with acceptance and affirmation (rejection-fear). He asks, “What is the result of this people-idolatry?” And then says, “As in all idolatry, the idol we choose to worship soon owns us…The whole strategy backfires. We never expect that using people to meet our desires leaves us enslaved to them.”[5]
Remember Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare; but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” The fear of man is a “snare” because when we live for people’s approval, we become slaves to them. This traps us in the exhausting cycle of constantly worrying about what people think of us. It’s exhausting because God made us to live lives centered on him, not people. “The fear of the Lord leads to life” (Pro. 19:23).
The fear of man is slavery, the fear of God will set you free. In the fear of man, we use others. In the fear of the Lord, we love others.
The Fear of Man is Understandable
The fear of man isn’t good and it leads to many harmful things. But it’s understandable, especially if you come from an environment of fear. Someone who’s been tragically hurt in relationships, or abused by those called to protect them, will understandably battle fear of man.
Ed Welch gets this right when he says, “The fear of other people comes out of us. It doesn’t matter where we live or whom we lived with – the fear of man is a regular feature of our own sin-tainted hearts. But certain influences can leave us more prone to these sinful tendencies…those who have been threatened, attacked, or shamed by others tend to be more vulnerable to the fear of man, and they have to be especially vigilant.” He points out that, “If your history made you more vulnerable to the fear of others, you were probably affected by a steady stream of discouraging words. In other words, day in and day out you heard something critical, demeaning, or unkind.” He says, “Can a history of victimization intensify our inclination to fear people? There is no question that it can make some people more susceptible. But such a history cannot force us into the fear of man, nor can it prevent us from leaving that fear behind.”[6]
Welch is saying that we don’t have to shame ourselves because of our fear of man. It’s understandable that those who lived in an environment of fear would struggle with fear of man. You don’t have to beat yourself up over it. But you do have to fight it. It’s not the heart posture God calls you to. Our history doesn’t have to have the last word. It’s possible to leave that fear behind. But how?
Casting Out the Fear of Man
The only thing that can cast out the fear of man is a deep love relationship with God. 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” And remember the last part of Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare; but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
Because of Jesus’ perfect life, death for our sins, and resurrection, we can know the deep, deep love of God. Those who turn away from their sin and put their trust in Jesus alone, who know that he is their only hope in life and death, will enter into and never have to leave the love of God.
And this love is the only thing that can cast fear of man from our hearts, as we remember that the only Person in the universe who really matters sees us, covers us, loves and accepts us.
Only in Jesus will you find the covering and acceptance you’re looking for through the fear of man. When we know his love, we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Heb. 13:6)
[1]Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1997),, 14.
[2]Ibid., 15-7.
[3]Timothy Keller, with Kathy Keller, God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Book of Proverbs (New York: Viking, 2017), 96.
[4]Much of the material that follows is a distillation of Welch’s book When People Are Big and God Is Small, chapters 2 and 3.
[5]Ibid., 46.
[6]Ibid., 52-3, 70, emphasis his.
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The Fear of the Lord
Last week we talked about the fear of the Lord and how it has to be the energizing center of our lives if we want to experience any real and lasting change. As Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,” and “the fear of the Lord leads to life” (14:27, 19:23).
We discussed how the fear of the Lord is a spectrum of attitudes before God, from terror to worship, and how it’s meant to be the organizing principle in the center of our lives, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (9:10). I said the fear of the Lord is when God becomes the biggest thing in your life, when he’s no longer a concept but the main passion of your life.
Many of us want this kind of heart-posture but it feels so elusive and impossible to attain and maintain. This is because the fear of Lord doesn’t grow uncontested in our hearts. It isn’t unopposed or it would be flourishing in our lives. So what opposes the fear of the Lord in our hearts? What keeps us from living there consistently?
Today I want us to consider the opposite of the fear of the Lord, or what opposes its growth in our lives. Next week, we’ll consider what the fear of the Lord produces in our lives and how to grow in it.
The Fear of Man
So what opposes the fear of the Lord in our lives? It’s actually another kind of fear, the fear of man. This is one of the main areas the Lord is sanctifying me. I struggle with fear of man daily, so I’m not a spiritual guru who’s reached sanctification nirvana, but a fellow struggler with you.
What is the fear of man? Ed Welch defines it simply as when “we replace God with people.”[1] It goes by other names, like peer pressure or people pleasing. Whatever we call it, we must understand that the fear of man is a prison and keeps us from the freedom of the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare; but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
What Does the Fear of Man Look Like?
The fear of man can be hard to spot and may be submerged under or camouflaged by our impressive resumes or abilities or perceived successes. Because of this, Welch provides lots of diagnostic questions to help us see fear of man in our lives:[2]
Are you overcommitted? Do you find it hard to say “no” to things wisdom would indicate you should? Do you struggle to say “no” to people you love out of fear of hurting the relationship?
Are you hyper-concerned or hyper-sensitive about what others think of you?
Do you mostly talk about successes and not much about failures? Are most of your conversations with church members, close friends, or family surface level?
Are you afraid of making mistakes that will make you look bad in other people’s eyes?
Are you always second-guessing decisions because of what other people might think?
Do you struggle to confront sin in other people’s lives?
Are there things about yourself that you’re committed to not tell anyone? Are there sins you confess to God but not to anyone else?
Are you easily embarrassed?
Do you ever lie, especially the little white lies, to make yourself look better or to avoid embarrassment?
Do you often become like a chameleon to fit in with whatever people you’re around?
Do you look for people’s approval by trying to sound like the smartest person in the room, or using humor to get people to like you, or over-spiritualizing things to appear godly?
Are you quick to criticize and point out flaws and slow to encourage?
When you compare yourself with other people, do you feel good about yourself?
Do you avoid people?
Does any of this resonate with you? In their devotional on Proverbs 29:25, Tim and Kathy Keller add a few more ways fear of man shows up in our lives:
“If we look to human beings more than God for our worth and value, we will be trapped by anxiety, by an overneed to please, by the inability to withdraw from exploitative relationships, by the inability to take criticism, and by a cowardice that makes us unable to confront others. Our feelings will be easily hurt and we will tend to overcommit out of a desire for acceptance. The devastation that comes from the fear of man has many forms. It includes parents who are afraid to discipline their children and employees who are unable to call out corruption in their companies…Who’s approval is functionally more important to you than God’s?”[3]
Our hearts are full of the fear of man, or the desire to put people in the place of God. Like weeds in a garden, the fear of man chokes out the fear of the Lord and keeps it from growing in our hearts. And serving the functional lord of human approval leaves us exhausted and empty and anxious and angry. “The fear of man lays of snare” (Pro. 29:25).
Specific Reasons Why We Fear Other People
Welch says there are several reasons why we fear other people more than God. Two of them are that we fear people because they can expose us and because they can reject us.[4]
“People Will See Me”
First, we fear people because we think they’ll expose us. The fear is, “People will see me.” One of the most fundamental lies we believe is that if people really knew me, if they really saw me, they’d reject me. So we hide. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we don’t want our nakedness exposed, so we hide in order to avoid humiliation.
Our sin and sins committed against us make us feel vulnerable so we’re desperate for covering and protection. The gaze of a holy God and the gaze of unholy people is a threat to us so we frantically hide to protect ourselves. Like Adam and Eve, our shame sends us into hiding.
This is one reason why we don’t like to be open with people, why we give the significantly edited version when people ask how we are. We prefer walls of self-protection to hide behind. These walls could be our jobs, money, intelligence, accomplishments, kids or grandkids, ministry, or our busyness.
As Adam and Eve found out, the problem is that nothing man-made can truly cover our shame. Even if we find the best hiding spot, God still sees and we still feel worthless.
As we hide out of fear of exposure, something else happens in our hearts. Even though we’re hiding, we like to spy on others. Welch says that apparently the walls we hide behind have little cracks that allow us to see outside. So while we’re hiding, we’re spying.
Why do we spy? Because seeing the vulnerability of others helps us feel better about ourselves. While we’re hiding we deflect attention away from our sin and shame by pointing it out in others. We try to cover ourselves by uncovering others. This is especially prevalent in abusive relationships, when an abuser is preoccupied with the failings of others but refuses to see their own. While it’s easy to spot this plank in an abuser’s eye, we all have specks of this behavior in our eyes.
Welch goes on to say that we also spy because we want to find someone out there who’s strong and who can be our hero. We don’t want to stay hidden, we want to be rescued! Finding a hero would make us feel less isolated. This is why fantasy is a popular past time while we’re hiding. We run to another world hoping to find relief from the pain of this one.
Our shame creates fear of man which creates hiding. Much of our hiding happens in plain sight in the form of image-management. We work hard to project an image of strength to cover our weakness. We carefully craft an image that covers our flaws and promotes our perfections.
The fear of our shame being exposed sends us into hiding because we’re desperate for safety. This is driven by the fear of man or looking to people rather than God to cover you.
“People Will Reject Me”
Second, we fear people because we think they’ll reject us. Welch says this is perhaps the most common reason we fear other people. Memories from our childhood remind us how much we hate rejection because it hurts so badly. Whether it was not being chosen or being chosen last for the team during recess, not being asked to the dance, not getting the part in the play, seeing siblings get special treatment, having a best friend decide to be friends with someone else, or having your mom or dad leave your family for someone else, these things leave their mark. As a result, usually subconsciously, we do what we must to never be rejected again.
Even into adulthood, we experience rejection. Whether it’s a college professor who overlooks us for an award, not being invited to the party, not getting the job, seeing a coworker get a promotion instead of us, having an engagement broken off, a spouse who leaves, a child who rebels, or friends who grow cold and distant over time, we feel the sting of rejection. We worry that people won’t be pleased with us, that they’ll ignore us, won’t like us, will be annoyed by us, or will withhold acceptance and love from us. All this makes us feel worthless and sends us into isolation because at least there we can’t be rejected. We attempt to reject rejection through isolation, only to find that in isolation the feeling and fear of rejection doesn’t go away.
This sort of fear of man has been around forever. Moses told Israel, “You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgement is God’s” (Deut. 1:17). Moses knew that people would struggle with honoring some people over others because they feared being rejected by those they considered more important. So there were laws against favoritism. Judges must not revere those who seem more important or more powerful or more wealthy or more attractive or more intelligent. They must govern in the fear of the Lord, not the fear of man.
In Jesus’ day, there were some who believed in him but they feared confessing their faith in him publicly. Why? John 12:42-43 tells us, “Many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” They had faith but they feared what the Pharisees might do, so they stayed quiet. John says the reason was because they “loved” the praise that comes from people more than God’s glory. They feared the rejection of men more than they feared God.
The fear of rejection shows up in our lives in many ways. Perhaps the most common way this rejection fear shows up in our lives is through people-pleasing. Being a people-pleaser means you’re constantly thinking about how to make people like you and constantly avoiding things that may upset people. As kids and teenagers, we do so many things simply because we want to fit in. But adults are no different, we just learn to hide it better. We also think about how to make people like us and are careful not to upset people. We spend time worrying about what others think about our outfit or hair or car or apartment or house or kids or sermon. We worry about comments or questions we raised in class or small group, wondering what people thought of us. Our brains are consistently analyzing whether people like us or not.
Billy Graham said that when he was young he worried a lot about what people thought of him, but as he got older he realized no one was thinking of him!
The opposite of a people-pleaser is a people-lover, and Jesus is of course a perfect example of this. Even his enemies could see it. They said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and that you teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances” (Mt. 22:16). Of course, they were saying this to flatter him, but they’d noticed something true about Jesus. Jesus didn’t show favoritism. He reached out to the rich and poor, male and female, Jew and Gentile. He didn’t take a poll to see what was popular and then do that. Instead, he humbly yet courageously acted and spoke in ways that exalted God and loved people.
Paul also was a people-lover, not a people-pleaser. He didn’t change his message based on what others would think. He was even willing to confront a good friend, Peter, when Peter wasn’t walking in step with the gospel (Gal. 2:14). Only people-lovers are able to confront because they aren’t controlled by other people. Paul told the Galatians that if he were trying to please man, he wouldn’t be serving Christ (1:10). He didn’t live to please man. He lived to please Christ.
Welch points out that the thing shame-fear and rejection-fear have in common is that in each case people are our favorite idol. We either worship them as those with God-like gazes (shame-fear) or as those with a God-like ability to fill us with acceptance and affirmation (rejection-fear). He asks, “What is the result of this people-idolatry?” And then says, “As in all idolatry, the idol we choose to worship soon owns us…The whole strategy backfires. We never expect that using people to meet our desires leaves us enslaved to them.”[5]
Remember Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare; but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” The fear of man is a “snare” because when we live for people’s approval, we become slaves to them. This traps us in the exhausting cycle of constantly worrying about what people think of us. It’s exhausting because God made us to live lives centered on him, not people. “The fear of the Lord leads to life” (Pro. 19:23).
The fear of man is slavery, the fear of God will set you free. In the fear of man, we use others. In the fear of the Lord, we love others.
The Fear of Man is Understandable
The fear of man isn’t good and it leads to many harmful things. But it’s understandable, especially if you come from an environment of fear. Someone who’s been tragically hurt in relationships, or abused by those called to protect them, will understandably battle fear of man.
Ed Welch gets this right when he says, “The fear of other people comes out of us. It doesn’t matter where we live or whom we lived with – the fear of man is a regular feature of our own sin-tainted hearts. But certain influences can leave us more prone to these sinful tendencies…those who have been threatened, attacked, or shamed by others tend to be more vulnerable to the fear of man, and they have to be especially vigilant.” He points out that, “If your history made you more vulnerable to the fear of others, you were probably affected by a steady stream of discouraging words. In other words, day in and day out you heard something critical, demeaning, or unkind.” He says, “Can a history of victimization intensify our inclination to fear people? There is no question that it can make some people more susceptible. But such a history cannot force us into the fear of man, nor can it prevent us from leaving that fear behind.”[6]
Welch is saying that we don’t have to shame ourselves because of our fear of man. It’s understandable that those who lived in an environment of fear would struggle with fear of man. You don’t have to beat yourself up over it. But you do have to fight it. It’s not the heart posture God calls you to. Our history doesn’t have to have the last word. It’s possible to leave that fear behind. But how?
Casting Out the Fear of Man
The only thing that can cast out the fear of man is a deep love relationship with God. 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” And remember the last part of Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man lays a snare; but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
Because of Jesus’ perfect life, death for our sins, and resurrection, we can know the deep, deep love of God. Those who turn away from their sin and put their trust in Jesus alone, who know that he is their only hope in life and death, will enter into and never have to leave the love of God.
And this love is the only thing that can cast fear of man from our hearts, as we remember that the only Person in the universe who really matters sees us, covers us, loves and accepts us.
Only in Jesus will you find the covering and acceptance you’re looking for through the fear of man. When we know his love, we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Heb. 13:6)
[1]Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1997),, 14.
[2]Ibid., 15-7.
[3]Timothy Keller, with Kathy Keller, God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Book of Proverbs (New York: Viking, 2017), 96.
[4]Much of the material that follows is a distillation of Welch’s book When People Are Big and God Is Small, chapters 2 and 3.
[5]Ibid., 46.
[6]Ibid., 52-3, 70, emphasis his.