Fear of Man

...other people became a threat because they too could see it. Their perceived opinions could now dominate our lives. The story of Scripture looked to hide and protect themselves from the gazes of God and other people.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small, p.24

We Fear People

Three basic reasons why we fear other people:
1- We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us.
2- We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us.
3- We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us.

These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as "bigger" then God.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small, p.23

Fear of Man

Fear of man summarized: We replace God with people. Instead of a biblically guided fear of the Lord, we fear others.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small, p.14

Fear of Man

"Fear" in the biblical sense is a much broader word. It includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshiping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small, p.14

Religion

“What a hopeful sign it would be even if people were excited against religion! Really, I would sooner that they intelligently hated it than that they were stolidly indifferent to it. A man who has enough thought about him to oppose the Truth of God is a more hopeful subject than the man who does not think at all.”

Spurgeon

Fitting in the good things

“They [the puritans] lived by ‘method’ (we would say, by a rule of life), planning and proportioning their time with care, not so much to keep bad things out as to make sure that they got all good and important things in.”

- J. I. Packer in A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life.

How to Grow in Godliness

"If thou meanest to enlarge thy religion, do it rather by enlarging thy ordinary devotions, rather than thy extraordinary devotions." - John Owen