Fear and Comfort

     There is a great post by Dan Phillips over at the Pyromaniacs blog.  It's worth reading in full but I'll just give a snippet of it here.  In short, he takes a look at what appears to be two contradictory terms in Acts 9:31 which says,

"So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.  And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied."

Most would say that fear and comfort cannot dwell together in any beneficial way.  But Dan points out why this is not the case for the believer and is, in fact, a healthy balance:

"Luke sees and depicts ["the comfort of the Holy Spirit"] as seamlessly joined with the preceding ["fear of the Lord"]. The two are joined by a simple "and," not "and yet" or "and by contrast," nor qualified by "sometimes... sometimes."  Clearly, the jarring disconnect we feel between fear and comfort was not a problem to Luke. It was fear that gave the heart and mind the right stance before God; it was comfort given by the Spirit that assured and encouraged him in the life he was moved to live." 

In the comments after Dan's post, "Darryl" said,

"When we fear the Lord as we ought, are we not then comforted by the thought that there is nothing to be compared with Him and therefore nothing else that we ought to fear?"

"Dave" said,

 "I taught about the fear of the Lord a while back. There are many believers who will claim that we are not to fear. Be honest, we often fear the "creation" and give little heed to the "Creator". Peace be still. Acts 9:31 would not let go of me. Thanks for the reminder. "

Dan Phillips added,

"I doubt that there is any sin or aberration that cannot ultimately be traced back to an under-estimation of God, and an over-estimation of something else." 

Amen and amen.