An Example of the Fear of God

Well, after that brief interlude I wanted to give an example of what I was saying about the fear of God. One of the best examples I have ever found of the idea, and one that helped me to understand what was meant by the fear of God, is actually in a fiction novel.
The novel Year of the Warrior is set in Medieval Norway shortly after the early introduction of Christianity into the Norse world. The main character is a young man who is removed from the Catholic seminary because he is unable to keep his vows. The man arrives home to find his village in the midst of a viking raid in which he is captured by the raiders to be sold as a slave. He tells them that he is a priest to gain preferential treatment (priests sold for a greater sum) and is sold to a Christian viking lord.
At one point in the story this lord takes ill and the main character is asked to go pray over him for God's healing. The description of the main character's walk from his hut to the hut where his lord is dying begins as a beautifully written introspection about whether or not he actually wants his lord to live. If his lord died he would be free, and he has fallen in love with the woman his lord keeps as a mistress, though she harbors no such feelings for him at this point in the story. During his introspection a figure, who is obviously cast as Satan, appears beside him and promises him a great many things if he would be willing to allow his lord to die. This temptation culminates with the promise that his lord's mistress will fall in love with him and they will be together.
The main character responds to this temptation in a manner that many Christians today would not understand, he turns to the Satan figure (who is pictured as a man in a black cloak), and says "If I were a stronger man, or a braver man, I might accept your offer. But I am weak and a coward and terribly afraid of my God."
This simple statement struck me, when I first read the book several years ago, as a profound departure from the modern view of God.
The novel as a whole is excellent and is a powerfully written story of one man's journey from near atheism to a complete faith in God. This statement comes at a point where the main Character is beginning to finally believe in the God of scripture and in his power, both to protect and to punish. What strikes me most about this scene, and the book as a whole, is the unwavering honesty that it applies to the Christian experience. Sometimes we NEED to be afraid of God, not just so that we can understand his revelation to us, but also so that we can make the right choice when faced with abundant temptation.

My First Blog

Well, this is my first blog. I'm calling it useful religion because that's the point of religion, to be useful. If your religious beliefs are sitting on the periphery of your life, as an addendum or a footnote, then they're not doing you much good. My goal in this blog is to provide useful, quality discussion of important religious issues. These issues will not necessarily be current events, though some might be, instead they will be issues of theology, philosophy, and biblical teaching important to my own life and issues that I consider important to the lives of others.
So, before I go any further let me briefly discuss my qualifications, after all you don't want to be taking your religious advice from some loon on the internet right? Well...I hope not at least.
I am a conservative Christian and so the majority of my posts will have to do with Christian theology, belief, and biblical exegesis. However I will, from time to time, post something pertinent to other religious beliefs as well. I have a Master of Divinity from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and have studied theology, Christian history, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics (exegesis is the study of what the scripture actually says while hermeneutics is the study of how what it says should be interpreted), Christian leadership, Greek, and Hebrew. Along these major areas of study are more minor studies in church administration and growth, evangelism, world religions (focusing on far eastern religions), and religious philosophy.
Well, that's it for this post, I intend to update this blog every day or two with new posts on matters of religious and theological import to the everyday life of the Christian. Please don't think this will be a blog for theologians and biblical scholars only, though they are certainly welcome to read, I intend this blog to be pertinent to the individual Christian's life and spiritual walk.
I hope that you find this blog useful in the future and take the chance to put into practice the teachings I put forth.