text: what is meant by "god fearing"? i have heard people throw these two words around rather casually.  the god that i understand is not to be feared, but to be loved.  please shed some light on this for me... when the king james bible was translated in the 1700's "fear" meant "awe"(sorta like gay meant happy,but the meaning has changed.)unfortunately,now fear means being scared.so the original meaning of feeling awe,has unfortunately been misconstruesd as to feel afraid .word meanings change over the years,for example suffer once meant permit-like,permit the little children to come unto me, u would not believe how many people nowadays believe christ was asking children to suffer for him,or something like that.