What does the Bible say about fear and anxiety?

Question 11069.

Fear and anxiety are addressed in Scripture far more often than most people realise, and usually with a good deal more tenderness than the way we quote those verses to one another. The instruction not to be afraid appears again and again, and it is almost always accompanied by a reason rather than a rebuke.

I want to handle this carefully, because a believer in the grip of real anxiety does not need another verse thrown at them. They need to know what God actually says and what he does not say.

Fear is not automatically sin

Let me clear this away at the start. Fear is a created capacity, and it does a useful job. A person who feels nothing when a car mounts the pavement is not spiritually advanced. He is in danger.

Scripture records fear in people God commended. Elijah ran for his life. David wrote that his heart was in anguish within him and the terrors of death had fallen upon him. Jesus in Gethsemane was greatly distressed and troubled, and sweated as though it were drops of blood.

So fear and anxiety in themselves are not proof of a faith problem. That needs saying loudly, because a great many Christians are carrying guilt for an experience the Bible treats as human.

What Jesus actually said about worry

The Sermon on the Mount deals with this at length. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. You can read the passage at Matthew 6:25 to 34.

Notice how he argues. He does not scold. He points at birds and flowers and reasons from the lesser to the greater, asking whether we are not of more value than they are. The remedy he offers is a bigger view of the Father rather than an effort of will.

He also names the time frame. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Most fear and anxiety is spent on a day that has not arrived, and often on a version of it that never will.

It is also worth noticing what he does not say. He does not tell them that anxious people lack faith, and he does not attach a rebuke. The passage ends with a practical instruction to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which is a redirection of attention rather than a demand for a change of feeling.

The Greek behind the word

The word translated anxious, merimnao, carries the sense of being pulled apart or divided. That is a remarkably accurate description of what anxiety feels like from the inside, a mind torn between competing outcomes and unable to settle on any of them.

The same root is used positively elsewhere of proper concern, which tells us the problem is not caring about things. It is being fragmented by them, so that concern has stopped serving us and started running us.

That distinction is pastorally useful. Fear and anxiety become a problem not when a believer cares deeply but when the caring has taken the wheel.

It is worth adding that Jesus used the same word of Martha, telling her she was anxious and troubled about many things. He was not condemning her hospitality. He was naming the fragmentation that had taken hold of a woman doing something genuinely good, and his remedy was to point her towards the one thing needed.

Paul’s practical instruction

Philippians gives the clearest working method in Scripture. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds.

Notice the exchange. He does not promise the situation will change. He promises a peace that guards, using a military word for a garrison posted around a city. The circumstances may stay exactly as they are while something changes at the gates of the mind.

Notice also the thanksgiving. That is not a decorative addition. Deliberate gratitude interrupts the loop that fear and anxiety run on, because it forces attention onto what is true rather than what might happen.

Fear and anxiety are not always spiritual

This has to be said plainly. Anxiety can be a medical condition. It can be produced by thyroid problems, by hormonal change, by medication, by trauma, by exhaustion, and by a nervous system that has learned a pattern it cannot easily unlearn.

Telling such a person to pray harder is like telling a diabetic to believe more. Some of the most faithful believers I know have battled anxiety for decades, and their faith is not the deficient element in the equation.

Get medical help where it is needed, and do not treat that as a failure. I have written more about the wider question in whether depression is a sin or a spiritual problem.

The Bible itself is unembarrassed about the physical dimension. Proverbs 12:25 observes that anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad, which is as plain a statement about the interaction of body, mind and encouragement as you will find anywhere. Fear and anxiety are treated as conditions to be helped rather than sins to be scolded.

The fear of the Lord

There is one fear Scripture actively commends, and it is worth mentioning here because it functions as a kind of antidote. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and it means reverent awe rather than terror.

The practical effect of that fear is the shrinking of every other one. A person who has taken the measure of God finds that the opinions of colleagues, the state of the economy and the outcome of a meeting all move down the list.

That is not a technique. It grows through knowing him, and it is one reason fear and anxiety often loosen their grip in seasons when a believer is spending real time in Scripture.

What God says to the afraid

Run through the fear not passages and a pattern emerges. Fear not, for I am with you. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

The command always comes attached to a person. God does not say fear not because things will turn out well. He says fear not because I am here. That is a different kind of comfort and it holds in situations where the first would collapse.

Peter puts it most simply, telling us to cast all our anxieties on him because he cares for us. The word for casting suggests throwing something off yourself onto another, the way a traveller throws a load onto a pack animal.

There is a further comfort in how often the phrase appears. By one count some form of fear not occurs well over a hundred times in Scripture, which tells us God expected his people to need it repeatedly. He is not exasperated by having to say it again. I have written on the wider question of trusting him in how doctrine helps in times of suffering.

Practical help that actually helps

Speak truth to yourself rather than listening to yourself. The psalmist asks his own soul why it is cast down and then instructs it to hope in God. That is a man taking charge of his own inner commentary rather than being carried by it.

Limit the intake. A mind fed on rolling news and other people’s crises will produce fear and anxiety the way a fire produces smoke, and most of what we consume concerns situations we can do nothing about. Turning some of it off is not burying your head. It is refusing to carry burdens that were never assigned to you.

Deal with the body. Sleep, food, movement and daylight are not unspiritual, and a great deal of what presents as fear and anxiety improves measurably when those are attended to. Elijah was given bread and rest before he was given a word.

And do not isolate. Anxiety flourishes in secrecy and shrinks when spoken aloud to somebody safe. Bear one another’s burdens is not a sentiment, it is an instruction, and it assumes the burdens will be known.

So, now what?

Take one specific worry this week and put it into words in prayer, with thanksgiving attached, exactly as Paul prescribes. Vague anxiety resists prayer because it never gets named. Naming it is half the work.

Then check the ordinary things. Are you sleeping, eating, moving, seeing daylight, talking to anybody? Fear and anxiety feed on a body that is running on empty, and there is no virtue in ignoring that.

And if it has become more than you can carry, tell your doctor and tell someone in your church. You are not failing. What would it mean for you to hear the words fear not as a promise about a person rather than an instruction you keep breaking?

“Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

1 Peter 5:7, ESV