Bible Discussion Thread

honestly I feel like a message is being missed here by many, so I felt I should shed light upon it. "work out your *own* salvation with fear and trembling" in one way he is saying to focus on yourself exclusively based on your own requirements of what he would expect from us when he is not present. by this time we know morally what we need to do, however he also notes while he is there as well to do the same thing..... this let's me know that his expectations for me may not be the same for *me* as he had for others.... in fact there are many examples of this throughout the bible. one of which being the nazarians. God required of them not to drink of wine, yet the jews were allowed to drink of wine. he also required some never to marry yet would allow others too and to top it off require them to marry the local whore in order to warn the people of a coming catastrophe. he required noah to build a boat and survive a flood and he has never asked me to build a boat. all fine examples of this. further the word for fear I can assure you is not the fear many would think this statement means... I'm sure if you looked up the word for fear when he spoke of in the negative light and the one used in this scripture; you would notice they use different hebrew translations or meaning. I honestly have never really had fear of God. my biggest fear of god is that I will break his heart. how is fear in this sentence being used? to tremble however that is a sighn of anxiousness in deep thought or caution with importance. note tho that there are many expressed fears of God in the bible and its entirety that I could tell. there was fear of punishment, fear of him, a reverent fear of respect, and a fear of failing him. fear of trust in God. it explains that fear is the opposite of faith so this needs to be examined with a fine tooth comb to find all the meaning this scripture could be expressing. for me the meaning is caution, handled with great care to match the value of my love for him.