What does it mean to have the fear of God?

What should we infer when Proverbs—written to a young man—concludes its preface about its purpose—that its reader should gain wisdom—with this warning?

"The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Pr 1:7)

The Bible often tailors its warnings to our sinful tendencies. So it doesn't warn men against nagging, or women against being doormats. Rather, it warns husbands against their tendency to despise and neglect their wives; wives against disrespecting and controlling their husbands.

Therefore it's safe to conclude from Proverbs 1:7 that young men tend to have no fear of God. They are cocky, and this is a sin they must overcome to be truly wise. I know this first-hand as well as from observation. But what is holy fear, and how can we spot the lack of it?

Proverbs mentions the fear of the Lord 14 times, triangulating on a set of attributes and behaviors we can look for in ourselves and others. I'll try to summarize them...

1. A man who fears the Lord accepts instruction and rebuke so as to become more like his Father. A man who does not fear God hates any knowledge that requires him to admit error or change his ways. Thus he can never be intimately acquainted with God or his ways.

2. A man who fears the Lord hates evil—especially pride, arrogance, and perverted speech. They grieve him and he tries to mortify them. A man who does not fear God is himself evil—he is boastful and disrespectful, and eagerly involves himself in speaking ill of others.

3. A man who fears the Lord is content to be made low because he has an inkling of how he compares to God. He seeks his true place before him, and so naturally raises up God's greatness rather than his own. A man who does not fear God seeks to establish superiority over everyone.

4. A man who fears the Lord trusts the Lord. Because his refuge is God, he is firm even in crisis and poverty, and his children can take refuge in him. He is a true patriarch. But a man who does not fear God is fearful of what people will do even when circumstances seem favorable.

The central theme of Proverbs is Solomon teaching his son the trade of wise rulership—which is really a proxy for God teaching us how to be his sons by truly representing him. A son is one who reveals and represents his father, as Jesus taught us. This is our calling.

Deuteronomy 10:12–13 helps us understand how the fear of God ties into this calling of sonship, describing what God requires of us:

“To fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of Yahweh, which I am commanding you today for your good."

To fear God is to love him and to walk in his ways. It is to accurately represent him and rule for him. It is to be a true son as Adam was created to be, and Jesus was. But sin twists the desire to rule in God's name into a craving to rule in our own name. And it starts young.

This is why Solomon warns his son to fear God. A young man must first choose to fear God before he can ever hope to be a good patriarch. He must turn from his own wisdom and strength to find true wisdom and strength in God. He must put to death self-rule in order to truly rule.

Sin is slippery. We justify these tendencies in ourselves, and want to think the best of others. But there's one very simple way to test which direction someone is moving in, and that is to examine their attitude to God's proxies that he has established in the world.

All fatherhood is from God (Eph 3:15); so how a young man treats older men is a basic acid test of how he treats God. Leviticus 19:32 makes the connection explicit: "You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man and fear your God."

So if you're assessing a man—even yourself—the question is simple: does he flatten out age-status to treat his elders as his equals? Is he a straight-up punk, treating them as inferiors? Or does he show them honor? How a man treats an older man is how he treats God in his heart.