Fear of God is not Reverence
That stance / doctrine of ‘fear means reverence’ is at least partly to blame in my opinion. At times the word translated fear means terror, not ‘just’ fear, let alone reverence. No fear of God = no wisdom, no restraint, no repentance It has long been a grievance to me that people would focus on one element continually (love / grace / forgiveness) and quote things like ‘it’s God’s love that controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14), forgetting (or deliberately suppressing) the rest of the verse: “Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all …