The following contains bits from the foreword I wrote for my friend Luke Kjolhaug’s newest book, Fear Not: How the Gospel Transcends Our Deepest Anxieties, which is released everywhere on September 15, but is available for pre-order now.
Whether it’s angelic beings showing up unannounced or God himself appearing to troubled prophets and patriarchs or petrified apostles caught in a torrential storm on a fishing boat, the Bible’s most oft-repeated promise goes something like this: “Don’t be afraid.” Those two words — “Don’t fear” or “Fear not” — pepper both testaments, greeting sinners and saints alike with buoyant hope amid life’s perpetual pressures. And while there may not be three hundred sixty-five occurrences of it as some devotional blogs might lead you to believe, its prevalence can’t be overstated. Nor should it.
Life is full of fearful things. Events and crossroads and decisions come with truckloads of fear-inducing thoughts about making the right choice or going the right way. Relationships, career paths, college applications, friend groups, church membership, etc. — seemingly every facet of life as we know it is backdropped by the fear of things not working, of being ostracized, of not fitting in, of not being successful, of being overlooked. As Pixar made sure to remind us in 2010’s Inside Out (easily one of my favorites), everyone has a Fear avatar in their head that keeps you safe when you’re young, but can keep you trapped as you age.
I think whether we’d admit it or not, there’s something we fear. And I don’t just mean like heights or spiders, even though those are legit. I mean the profound existential fears, like mattering in this life or what happens in the next. You know, the kind that keep you awake at 2 a.m.; the kind you don’t have to look for because they find you. Maybe we wouldn’t be apt to admit that there’s a corner of our mind, or maybe multiple corners, where we’ve harbored those fears, let alone put those fears in print. But that’s exactly what my friend Luke Kjolhaug has done with his latest book from 1517 Publishing, Fear Not: How the Gospel Transcends Our Deepest Anxieties.
I’ve enjoyed getting to know Luke over the last few years, initially in pixelated form via the conceits of connection that modernity affords, but then through the much more profound flesh-and-blood association of participating in the same ecumenical pastors’ network — Ken Jones’s brainchild, the Iowa Preachers Project — the purpose of which was to think deeply and communally about how to preach the gospel of Jesus more compellingly. As preachers who have a shared vested interest in the art of preaching, Luke and I bonded over many things that preachers in my orbit do: the law-gospel distinction, Reformation history, etc. But I think what also drew us together to the point where I’d consider him a dear friend is our shared fears and the ways we’ve found solace in the person of Jesus.
The best way I can introduce Luke to you, if he’s in need of an introduction, is to tell you that he’s an earnest, heartfelt preacher, committed to preaching the good news of Christ crucified and risen again for everyday people. This isn’t to comment on his capacity for heady theology that academicians love to argue about; it’s just to say that heady theology often has little bearing on everyday sinner-saints who are desperate for ways to stay hopeful, even as they navigate the everyday onslaught of trouble, anxiety, and fear. This was definitely true in Luke’s first book, Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer for the Christian Life, in which he endeavored to unpack Martin Luther’s simul iustus et peccator, that is, “simultaneously justified and sinner,” and the profound impact that has on daily life. But this non-ivory-tower approach to theology and pastoral ministry is even more apparent in Fear Not.
There are times when life in “East of Eden,” as it’s often called, can feel as though we’re treading shark-infested waters. And whether or not the next fiasco to hit headlines and occupy our attention will be as menacing as Steven Spielberg’s original Jaws or as non-threatening as one of those less successful or memorable sequels, who’s to say? Regardless, fear is palpable and perennial. Fear is pervasive. Open your phone, and you’ll quickly find a cavalcade of things to be afraid of, or at the very least, dread. We live in a marketplace that trades in fear and information about fear-inducing revelations. And we’ve become so saturated in all of this fear talk that we’ve resorted to putting our phobias in our Instagram bios. Fear is just part of our identity now.
There are myriad reasons why this notion feels incredibly modern, a crisis of the now, but this is nothing new. From lying patriarchs to a panicky multitude to runaway prophets to trembling apostles, the prevalence of fear is part and parcel of the human condition post-Genesis 3. There’s a tremor in our souls that manifests as an undercurrent of panic, almost like a low-grade fever. Sometimes it’s obvious; other times, it’s subtle. But always, it’s there. And no amount of Advil can quell it. We might not be able to diagnose it, but we are governed by fear more than we’d ever care to admit.
What makes Luke’s work in Fear Not so resonant is that he dares to show you his fears and faults and foibles. He refuses to write in theological platitudes or with scholarly posturing about all the ways you shouldn’t resign yourself to fear. Rather, he insists on writing as one in the thick of it, as one whose past is marked by fear. “God used my fears to drive me to my knees,” he admits, “to a posture of dependence rather than independence, where I could rely on the strength of another.”1 Fear Not wasn’t a book that was written at a distance. It was written by one who’s been there and back again, whose fears aren’t mastered so much as they are taken to the one who can do something about them.
Without trafficking in clichés or offering saccharine slogans dressed up as spiritual solutions to all those things that cause us to tremble, like a good theologian of the cross, Luke calls a thing what it is, stares down some of our deep-seated fears, even some of his own, and gestures to the one whose love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). “Only the Word of the Gospel,” he says near the end of the book, “is powerful enough to tunnel its way through the subterranean layers of our fear-prone hearts.”2 The fear that haunts us, that lurks inside us, is only deafened when we hear a word outside of us, which is precisely what “Don’t be afraid” is meant to communicate. To put it bluntly, “fear not” on Jesus’s lips isn’t a command so much as it is a promise, and so should it be on the lips of preachers, too.
Much like the gospel itself, Luke’s Fear Not isn’t a book that crushes you. It’s not a book of tips, tricks, and techniques on how to dispel fear from your life. The point isn’t for every reader to suddenly become fearless and live life with reckless abandon like those “Fear Not” bumper stickers. Actually, when you get to the end of Luke’s book, you might have just as many fears as when you started. But what you’ll discover along the way is that fear never has the final say, ever, and that even in all those days, times, and seasons of fear, even when your fears are thick and your faith is thin, you are never alone. There is one who is with you, whose promise of “Don’t be afraid” is invariably followed by, “For I am with you” (Gen. 26:24; Deut. 31:6, 8; Josh. 1:9; Isa. 41:10).
I know I may be a little biased because I wrote the foreword, but Fear Not is a gem of a book. It’s a gift to preachers and those who listen to preachers alike. It’s a book that meets you where you are, in the middle of your fears and doubts and worries. I hope you will get yourself a copy, because, in so doing, you’ll find yourself within earshot of the Word that speaks the same promise to you over, in, and through every fear: fear not. Not because life has suddenly become less fearful or less threatening, nor because your fears have suddenly gone mute. But because the Christ of God has come close with enough grace for every fear you carry. And those whom he holds fast, he never lets go.
Grace and peace to you, my friends.
Get your copy of Fear Not: How the Gospel Transcends Our Deepest Anxieties by Luke Kjolhaug on Amazon or the 1517 Shop.
Luke Kjolhaug, Fear Not: How the Gospel Transcends Our Deepest Anxieties (Irvine, CA: 1517 Publishing, 2026), 6.
Kjolhaug, 175.