“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.“
I have heard this verse thrown around a great deal this past year. I think it is important to understand the context of what Paul was saying. In fact, it goes beyond thinking – I know it is important to examine the context in which passages are written. Otherwise, we run the risk of misapplying the verse to a situation where it is not related.
During the 2020 Pandemic, people threw around this verse talking about how we “shouldn’t have a spirit of fear“.
“We shouldn’t be afraid. God has not given us a spirit of fear”.
I agree with the sentiment but they are misapplying what Paul was saying in this verse.
When people were using this verse they were talking about being opposed to wearing masks. Saying that, “If God wants a virus to take me out, then a virus will take me out“. I was as opposed to mandated masks as much as anyone, even as a scientist, but that does not mean I throw caution to the wind thinking that “whatever God wants to kill me can just go right ahead and kill me“. That is the mentality of hyper-conservative people who think that every move of the left is an attempt to stamp out all freedom. While on the complete opposite side of the spectrum you have the “masks at all cost” people.
I do not like extremists when it comes to group beliefs. I like personal extremism and intensity, but when groups get together and concentrate this extreme energy into a mob, it is not good for anyone. Previously I wrote in two separate articles that beliefs radicalize when they place the belief itself above God. Groups radicalize when they do the same thing.
Related: Radical Liberalism.
Related: Radical Conservatism.
All of that is beside the point. No matter what side of the political or religious spectrum you fall under, applying 2 Timothy 2:17 willy-nilly is inappropriate.
A Bible professor once made the statement in a lecture, “When studying the Bible there are three important things. Context, context, and context. The immediate context of the verse, the immediate context of the book and who it was written to, and the context of the book in relation to the rest of the bible“.
We often do not like looking at the context because that means we have to do a little background research about the book, chapter, and verse we are studying. It means we cannot take our first impression of whatever the text is saying and believe it right off the bat. It is easier to do that because it liberates us from the work of thinking. But the consequence is that we frequently misunderstand the bible.
Therefore, the context of 2 Timothy is this: the book was written by Paul to Timothy who was at a church at the time. The central theme of the book is “Christians must endure hardships for the cause of Christ“.
Back in the first century, this meant literal persecution. So when Paul is telling Timothy and the church that “God has not given us a spirit of fear“, it was specifically related to Christian persecution.
While it would be incredibly easy to call a pandemic “persecution“, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Last I checked the government was not putting Christians to death. And the majority of the population still had access to food and water. At the risk of sounding flippant, there was not much real suffering on a global scale. Sure, there was death and starvation, but it was a small percentage of the world. Most people still had food, water, and shelter and never lost these things.
We did not have the degree of persecution that Paul or the first century Christians were dealing with. They were being tortured and killed for their beliefs. And Paul still needed to write to them and encourage them that God had not given them a spirit of fear.
So let’s understand the context of these verses. Yes, it is true that God has not given us a spirit of fear. But this verse specifically means that we should not be fearful regarding the hardships of Christianity. And I would not call a virus a hardship that faces Christianity.
