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Every person God told to 'be strong and courageous' was already afraid. God wasn't dismissing the fear. He was giving them something bigger to stand on than what they felt. The command is not 'stop being afraid.' It's 'move anyway.'
Get These Verses Daily — Free“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
God frames courage as a command anchored to his presence — not a feeling to generate but a decision grounded in an unchanging fact.
“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
Courage here is paired with waiting — the hardest combination. Strength comes to those who hold their position rather than flee.
“For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”
God holds the right hand — the working hand, the sword hand. The posture is intimate and active at once.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
Fear as a dominating spirit is not from God — that's the diagnosis. The prescription is three things: power, love, and a sound mind. All three are gifts, not achievements.
“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
Moses says this to all Israel before Joshua hears it privately — corporate courage before individual commission. The community is meant to hold the word together.
The phrase "fear not" appears in some form over 365 times in Scripture — once for every day of the year, if you want the easy sermon illustration. But the more important observation is the pattern: every time God says it, he follows immediately with a reason. "Fear not, for I am with thee." "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee." The command is never just a demand to feel differently. It's always anchored to a theological fact about who God is and what he has done.
Joshua 1 is the most extended courage passage in the Old Testament. God tells Joshua to "be strong and of a good courage" three times in nine verses. Repetition in biblical literature is always meaningful — it signals urgency, importance, or the anticipated resistance. God knew Joshua was terrified. Moses, the man he followed, was irreplaceable. The task ahead — crossing the Jordan, taking the land — was humanly overwhelming. And yet the basis for courage was not Joshua's confidence. It was God's presence: "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."
Charismatic theology holds that courage is often connected to the Spirit's anointing. David didn't face Goliath on confidence alone — he came having already killed a lion and a bear in the Spirit's enabling. When the Spirit is present, the fear is still real, but it's no longer the largest thing in the room.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
The Greek word translated "bold" or "courageous" in much of the New Testament is parrēsía — and it literally means to say all things, to hold nothing back, to speak with complete openness. It's the word used repeatedly in Acts for the apostles' preaching. Courage in the New Testament is first a communicative act — not silence in the face of fear but speaking when fear says be quiet. The early church's primary courage was the courage to say the name of Jesus in contexts where that name was dangerous.
Here's what's easy to miss in Judges 6: when the angel appears to Gideon, Gideon is hiding in a winepress threshing wheat — literally concealing himself from the enemy. The angel greets him as "thou mighty man of valour." Not "thou frightened farmer." God consistently addresses people by who they will be, not by what they currently feel. That is not God being naive about the fear. It's God establishing identity before the obedience begins.
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