There are lots of opinions about the COVID situation. Many of those opinions concern what safety measures to take or not to take, including social distancing, masks, and vaccines. There are many reasons why someone may or may not want to do these things. Some people use Scripture as a justification not to take any precautions, saying that we are commanded not to fear, and implying or outright stating that those who do take precautions have a sinful lack of faith. I believe that this prospective is Scripturally wrong and this is what I want to talk about here.
There are many places in Scripture where we are told not to fear but I would like to look at the one that I have seen most often used to promote the prospective that I just mentioned.
2 Timothy 1
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Let’s look at the language used here. Notice that it says that we have not been given a “spirit of fear”. What does that mean? It may help to realize that the word generally translated as “fear” here is more properly translated as “timidity”. God has not given us a timid spirit.
Think about it this way. I am not afraid of water and I can swim well. However, when I get on a boat, I wear a life jacket. Though I am not afraid of water, I do realize that, in the right circumstances, it can kill me and so I take precautions against that. Similarly, I am not afraid of riding in a car but, every time I do, I wear a seatbelt. By wearing life jackets and seatbelts, am I demonstrating a timid spirit? Am I being sinfully fearful? No, I truly don’t believe I am.
When we find ourselves in potentially dangerous situations that are beyond our control, I absolutely do believe that we are to trust God to take care of us. However, I do not believe that we are to intentionally place ourselves in unnecessarily dangerous situations and then expect Him to protect us. That is not trusting God. That is testing God and we are warned not to do that.
Let’s see how Jesus handled this.
Matthew 4:
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,
6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”
Just after Jesus was baptized and just before His earthly ministry began, He went into the wilderness to fast and pray for 40 days. While there, He was repeatedly tempted by Satan. This is one of those temptations. Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and told Him to jump off, which would have resulted in a fall of several hundred feet, in order to prove that God would save Him and prove that He was the Son of God. Satan quoted to Jesus the majority of Psalm 91, verses 11 and 12.
Let’s look at verses 9 through 12.
Psalm 91
9 Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place,
10 No evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;
11 For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.
12 In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.
This Psalm makes promises of protection to the followers of God. In verse 9, it makes reference to those who make God their “dwelling place”. Because of this and other references in this Psalm, it appears to apply these promises to those who are particularly close to God. Jesus was and is the Son of God. Is there anyone closer to God than He? And yet, even Jesus was not willing to recklessly make a presumption of protection.
Jesus responded to Satan’s quotation of Scripture with His own quotation. Jesus said “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”. Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Let’s look at it.
Deuteronomy 6
16 “You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah.
In this Scripture, God was speaking to the children of Israel, shortly before they went into the promised land. God told them that they were not to tempt Him as they had done at Massah. This refers back to an incident, recounted in Exodus 17, where the people were demanding that Moses do something to get God to provide them water. God had given them plenty of reason to trust Him. He had brought them safely out of Egypt. In just the previous chapter, He had provided them Manna to eat. They should have patiently waited and trusted Him to provide them water to drink as well but they did not. They did not wait for Him to provide in His own time and in His own way. They began to question whether He was really with them and began to demand that, if He was with them, that He provide them water. In other words, they tested Him. For this reason, Moses named the place where this happened “Massah”, which means “to test”. Some translations render Deuteronomy 6:16 as “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”
God warned the children of Israel not to test Him, Jesus was not willing to test Him, and I believe that we have very good reason not to test Him. God had miraculously provided for the children of Israel, again and again, and they should have trusted Him to handle things in His own way. They insisted that He do it their way and, although He did accommodate them, He warned them not to ever do that again. Jesus took this warning seriously. Jesus knew that God had a plan to reveal to everyone who Jesus was. Satan tried to tempt Jesus to do things differently, in a way that would have been faster and easier, and Jesus refused, citing the incident with the children of Israel. I believe that we, too, should take God’s warning seriously. If God has already provided ways to take care of us, we should not test Him by insisting that He do things the way we think He should. That is dangerous.
I am not trying to tell you that you have to wear a mask or take the COVID vaccine. What I do want to ask you to ask yourself is this. If you choose not to do these things, why is it that you are not doing them and what message are you sending to others about doing or not doing them? If you give the situation careful consideration and you choose not to take the vaccine because you believe that the development was too rushed or you aren’t sure about the underlying science or something of that nature, I don’t share your concern, but I can certainly understand it. However, if you just flippantly take the attitude that you aren’t going to worry about things like vaccines and masks and are instead going to rely on God to protect you, in order to prove your faith, I believe you are taking a position that is not supported by Scripture. I believe that expecting God to miraculously protect you, when He has provided other means to protect you, in order to prove your faith or make a political statement, is a sin, and I believe that you may not find the miraculous protection that you are expecting.
Some people seem to see issues like this as science vs faith. I don’t think it has to be one vs the other. God created the universe and he created the laws of physics. God created us and it is He Who gave us the intellect to, at least to some extent, harness nature, through the application of sciences like biochemistry, for our benefit. The extent to which we can do that is limited and it isn’t going to go perfectly. Human kind is sinful and we live in a fallen world that is tainted by that sin. That is why we have disease in the first place. But God often blesses us through the things of this world. Perhaps we would prefer that He reach out and supernaturally handle everything. Sometimes He does do that but He makes it clear that we have no right to insist that He do that or presume that He will. So, I ask you to give what I have said careful consideration. Please don’t use Scripture like 2 Timothy 1:7 as a basis to reject things like masks and seatbelts and vaccines, in favor of seemingly more spiritual solutions, and please don’t make others feel less spiritual if they don’t adopt that attitude. I truly do not believe that this is what Paul had in mind here, nor what God had in mind when He inspired the writing of this verse of Scripture and others like it.
