Tag: What the Bible says about having a healthy fear of God

Job 28:20 (NKJV) 20 “From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding?

God’s word tells us over and over again how important wisdom and understanding are. Godly wisdom and spiritual understanding go hand in hand. And, if we let them, they will guide our steps, making sure we don’t get off track.

We teach pretty frequently on getting wisdom and understanding because God has shown us the importance of both of these things over the years.

With them, we flourish. Without them, we wither and die, or spend our lives floundering, going from one crisis to another.

The book of Proverbs speaks repeatedly about this, telling us to get wisdom, get understanding.

But here in the book of Job we see some of the most clear-cut, precise information given about what this really means.

As Job endured his ailments brought on by satan, he pondered on many things. His discourses were quite interesting as he pondered on many aspects of life and even expressed his anger and frustration with God for not preventing the affliction that he was experiencing.

Here in chapter 28, he spoke at length about wisdom and understanding, then finally he referred to God and summed it up with this:

Job 28:28 (NKJV) 28 And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”

Many people don’t fully understand the phrase, “the fear of the Lord”. Some would even say that God is not to be feared because He is love. But God’s word, in multiple places, says otherwise.

Job’s summary says it directly, though, stating that “the fear of the Lord is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding”.

When we fear God, we have wisdom. We have reached a point where we see the merits and the truth of what His word says about fearing Him.

And departing from evil is understanding. Because once we have godly understanding (understanding inspired by and given by God), we will no longer want to participate in evil. We will have, in fact, learned to run far from evil, running instead, toward God.

If you’d like to learn more about “the fear of the Lord”, you may want to watch a video we created last year. You can watch that video by clicking here.