The Shepherd, November 2008
Every parent can in practice be persuaded that an understanding about God puts in their hands a powerful tool for educating their child. When we instill in the child’s soul an understanding of God, as the Source of every good and the Judge of all peoples, then we introduce into his interior world the notion of good and evil, but we do this not by means of dry regulations, but with a view to a Living Person, Who stands above the world, before Whom we are all responsible. The Highest Power requires of us all that is good, and prohibits to us everything that is against His will and which, for this reason, appears as evil. Thus we build in the child’s soul an understanding of sin, as that which is shameful, inadmissible, and subject to reproof. With such a grasp of sin, the child will not see anything extraneous, because in his conscience there is an established recognition of guilt, of shame and the complicated distinction between good and evil. The concept of God gives a complete clarity and strength to these deep human notions.
An understanding of sin will open up before the child the path of moral choice, and a conscientiousness of our moral responsibility before God. Now all the child’s misdemeanours no longer break the demands of his father or mother, but rather the order established by God. And for his sin he is subject not only to the reproof of his father or mother, but of the Heavenly Father, Who requires the fulfilment of His commandments. And by the same token, all the spiritual and material good things that the child receives will henceforth come not from the hands of me, but from God the Lord Himself.
The Church’s wisdom informs us that such a spiritual disposition is “the fear of God,” concerning which already in the Old Testament it is said: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs of Solomon, 9:10).
In our days, for many people the very expression “the fear of God” is incomprehensible and misleading, and so we should pause over it for a while. In the clarity of the Evangelical commandments, the word “fear” loses its meaning as only an outward frightening. The Christian “fear of God” is not that animal or insurmountable fear which people experience in despotic and totalitarian regimes, where their life is completely dependent on fierce and inhuman powers. According to the Gospel, our relationship with God is expressed as one of filial love, and true love always strives not to grieve the beloved. So for instance, the son of a deeply loving father heeds him, not from fear of punishment, but out of love, not desiring to strain the good relationship with him. In like manner, in Christianity the quality we know as “fear of God” is bound up with the customary concept of God as father, Whom we fear to grieve by our disobedience and our breaking of His commandments. If sometimes Christians do not have such a “filial fear,” then this is because of a lack of love for God. The more we love God, the less we “fear” Him (according to the opinion of the blind who do not understand fear), but the Apostle John in his Epistle says: “perfect love casteth out fear, … whosoever feareth hath not reached perfection in love” (1 John 4:18). [It may appear that Father is contradicting himself here, but that is not the case - the Apostle himself tells us that he is speaking not of filial fear but of that which is expecting punishment - transl.]
And so, the fear of God - this quality of the soul of every sincere Christian, is afraid of grieving the Heavenly father by his conduct. It is infinitely far from the oppressive fear of unbelieving people, who are in unremitting fear of every misfortune, of illness, or of death, from which there is none save them. For the believer, though, it is a pure spiritual feeling, a knowledge of his responsibility before God. And the very best means of establishing this disposition is a proper religious up-bringing from the very earliest infancy.
… to be continued in the next issue with
“Religious Up-Bringing Within the Family”
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