Berean Standard Bible
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.
King James Version
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
About this verse
The verse names fear's origin and its replacement. Origin: "God has not given us a spirit of fear" — whatever the cowering spirit is, it did not come from him. Replacement: "power, love, and self-control." The trio is worth pausing on, because the opposite of fear here is not raw bravado. It is power (capacity to act), love (fear is self-protective; love turns outward), and self-control — a sound, disciplined mind. Fear scrambles thinking; its cure includes clarity.
This comes from what is almost certainly Paul's last surviving letter, written from a Roman prison with execution in view, to Timothy — his young protege, evidently timid by temperament, tempted to shrink from a gospel that kept getting its preachers arrested. The next verse urges him not to be ashamed of the Lord's testimony or of Paul the prisoner. A dying man is putting spine into a fearful one.
The verse does not shame you for feeling afraid; it disputes fear's credentials. The fearful spirit is not from God and therefore carries no authority over someone to whom power, love, and a sound mind have already been issued. The question it poses is simply which spirit you will act from.
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