Replies

Fear is not a good choice of words. Reverence would be a better choice as the Holy Spirit casts out “fear.” Fear and God’s Love cannot exist in the same space.

The traditional Gifts of the Holy Spirit are taken from Isaiah 11:3. Isaiah uses the Hebrew word, yirah, which can mean a loving and filial reverence, but it also means "dreadful, exceedingly, fearfulness". This is it's most common usage in the Old Testament. So it means both.

When you say "the Spirit casts out fear," you may be thinking of 1 John 4:18 where the Apostle writes "perfect love casts out fear." The Greek word he uses there for "fear is phobos, which always means a dreadful fear. Interestingly, in the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), the 2nd century BC translators use phobos for "fear" in Isaiah 11:3.

So I think the traditional use of the word "fear" as one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit is perfectly fine--properly taught and understood. I think our culture's diminished understanding of language (especially religious language) has led many to associate the word "fear" in the Bible with our modern weak understanding of it. To me, the solution is to not dumb down the traditional meaning of words, but to explain and educate others so that their understanding may be enriched.

Not only Fear... but Love itself has been redfined
antiseptically... to exclude any notion of a fearfullness.
Those who look at Mother Teresa's life of poverty and love of neighbor
cannot understand or see the love that put her
in that pit of despair in her Mission life.
Often, she is dismissed as one who wasted her life in poverty.
It's what Christ tried to convey to his Apostles -
even to the goal of their martyrdom.
A love to die for.
It's how Dostoyevski pointed out the false notion of a "dreamy" love:

"I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you,
for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing
compared with love in dreams.
Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action,
rapidly performed and in the sight of all.
Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long
but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on stage.
But active love is labor and fortitude,
and for some people too,
perhaps, a complete science."

Thank you for the excellent reply.

Yes 1 John 4:18 was the scripture I was thinking when I posted the comment.

But also from experience. God’s Love is so strong that if someone pointed a gun at my head and said they were going to kill me, I could feel nothing but Love for them.

Every time I have done spirit release and/or exorcisms, God’s Love actually does the work. When He is in me, I cannot experience fear, only Love. Love that is so strong it is beyond words of description.

When I died and went to Heaven, I fully experienced God’s Love. Total peace and bliss are felt, but no fear.

I frequently care for people who are dying. Often they fear death, until the Holy Spirit moves into them. The Love of the Holy Spirit removes their fear.

I feel fear not in my body, but as a physical object of consciousness. When I take hold of it, it cramps my hand until I pray. Then my hand gets hot as the fear is dissolved by the Love flowing through me in response to the prayer.