Sometimes Fear is in Awe, Sometimes It Is Being Scared

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

Oh, I like this one.  Living in reverent fear.  Who are we to be afraid of?  This is the part of the sentence that seems to me to turn the whole thing into fear of God’s judgment, impartial or not.  Reverence, completely understandable, one does not wish to mock on God the Father Almighty.  But fear?  That does not seem to make for a very joyous relationship.

We might need to turn this on its ear, assume that this reverent fear is along the lines of “the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  But I am not sure that is a fair reading of the text.  Because bringing the fear and reverence does not seem to be happening in a happy time.

The reverent fear is supposed to occur during the time of our exile.  Notice how I am slopping together the readers of Peter in his time and we, the readers of today?  One big happy family, with two thousand years of readers tucked in between us. 

We will speak more of the exile language tomorrow, that ties back into statements that Peter has already made.  But what if living in reverent fear is not concerning our relationship to God?  What if this reverent fear is a question of the believers living in relationship to their current neighbors?

We know from Acts that persecutions were already going on. Paul, when he was still Saul, was a great persecutor of Christians.  But even in his own missionary journeys, Paul found himself the target of persecution in his turn.  Peter himself is recorded as having been arrested and, while chained between two soldiers, an angel came to him, freed him from the chains, and walked him out of the prison (Acts 12).

Against a persecuting background, reverent fear begins to make more sense.  Be reverent, doing according to the things of the Lord.  The idea of the invocation of the Father as judge, that seems to carry with it an implied threat from those who may not appreciate what the readers are doing. 

We know that Peter is preaching to the Jews.  They may be reacting badly to his adding Jesus into the power and might of God the Father.  Adding ‘another god’ to God is a bad thing in monotheistic religions.  The fear may, in fact, be justified.  This time, I think the fear is just being scared.