Courage Defined – and 5 Scriptures About Courage

Courage Defined

Merriam-Webster defines courage as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” That sounds great, but what does that really mean, and how do we live it out as followers of Jesus? Let’s take a deeper look at the concept of courage.

Digging Deeper

When you want to know more about a particular word or idea in scripture, it helps to do a couple of things besides looking at the English definition –

1. Look back in time at the way the word was originally used in the Bible. This means finding the Hebrew or Greek words for it and translating those literally into English. (Here’s a post on How To Do A Bible Word Study – The Peaceful Mom).
2. Look at the roots of the English version of the word. I just use an online dictionary for this.

When we look at the original Biblical uses of the word “courage,” what we find is that the Hebrew word for courage in the Old Testament literally means “strengthen” or “repair.” And in the New Testament, the Greek word “tharsos” means literally “courage, confidence,” and sometimes “daring” or “bold.”

When I look at the roots of the English word we’re studying. Merriam-Webster says that the English word “courage” comes from the “Middle English word corage, from Anglo-French curage, from quer, coer heart, from Latin cor.” So, basically it comes from the word “heart.” Interesting…

Notice that there’s nothing about not being afraid or feeling fearful.

You can be afraid and still have courage to do the difficult thing you're facing. Click To Tweet

Putting it All Together

So how can we put all this together to better understand the meaning of the word “courage?” Well, the way I see it, “courage” literally means to strengthen the heart or to have confidence or boldness of heart. Now anytime we come across a scripture about courage, we can replace the word “courage” with this new meaning to get a better understanding of the scripture and the word “courage” itself. And, hopefully, by looking at some scriptural examples of people who had to do courageous things, we can better understand what it looks like to have courage today.

Let’s apply this strategy to the following scripture –

“Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.” Ezra 10:4

We can replace “courage” with our new way of saying it and come up with this –

“Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so have a bold heart and do it.”

or

“Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so be confident in your heart and do it.”

This scripture is referring to the people of Israel being disobedient to the Lord by marrying women that God had forbidden them to marry. They decided to make things right with God by sending their wives and children away.

How hard would that have been – sending the women and children they loved away to who knows where to face who knows what? But they had to do it to atone for their sin, and they placed Ezra, a religious leader of the Jews, in charge of making them leave.

As you can imagine, he would need a great deal of boldness and confidence to handle this difficult situation in which so many people were involved.

Now let’s take a look at a few more scriptures about courage.

Scriptures About Courage

“This is my command – be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

In this scripture, Joshua is leading the Israelites into the Promised Land after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Moses, their former leader, had died, leaving Joshua in charge.

They would have to be strong and bold of heart to go where God was calling them, as they knew that there were challenges there along with the great blessings promised by God.

“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

This is also part of the story of the Israelites’ journey into the Promised Land. In fact, it seems there are more instances of people being told to be courageous in this story than anywhere else in the Bible.

Moses says it to the people (in the scripture above), Moses says it to Joshua, God says it to Joshua, Joshua says it to the people, and the people say it back to Joshua. LOL! It’s all over the place in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua. This is because they all needed to hear it over and over.

Remember how their fear kept them from entering the Promised Land the first time? By continually reminding them to be courageous, God was encouraging them to trust Him and enter the land! If you find this story interesting, you can follow along with Joshua and the Israelites and get a pastor’s insight into this boldness of heart in the book New Normal by John Lindell.

“Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong.” 1 Corinthians 16:13

In this scripture, Paul is writing to the church in Corinth during a messy time in the history of the church there. If you read from the beginning of the book, you will see evidence of all sorts of questionable conduct. This is why he is telling them to let their hearts be renewed.

How often do we find ourselves in a mess with no fight left? Well, during those times, we need our hearts to be renewed and our resolve strengthened, just like the Corinthians did back then. We need to do and be all the things Paul was talking about.

Our world is also pretty messy, and the pressure to conform to the world’s ways is heavy. In such times as these, we need to have strengthened confidence and boldness of heart to rise above it all, wouldn’t you say?

“Then David continued, ‘Be strong and courageous and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the Temple of the Lord is finished correctly.'” 1 Chronicles 28:20

In this verse, David is telling Solomon about the instructions given to him by God about the construction of the Temple. It would take 7 years to build the Temple, the coordination of many people and a lot of materials, and the overseeing of a great number of details.

Undertaking a project of this magnitude would give Solomon plenty of opportunities to feel discouraged and overwhelmed, and David knew it. David also knew that Solomon would need to have confidence and strength of heart to complete it, so David assures Solomon that God would make sure it got done.

Here’s a cool article about the temple, including a virtual tour of what the inside of the temple might have looked like.

“Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites (emphasis added).” Joshua 5:1

I thought this one was interesting when I read it because of the reference to the hearts of the kings in the Promised Land. Notice how their hearts “melted in fear,” which caused them to lose courage. Melting is kind of the opposite of being strengthened, so it makes sense that melting hearts would go hand in hand with a loss of courage.

Application

So how can we apply what we’ve learned in our word and Bible study to our lives today?

There is a common theme in scriptures about having courage. This theme is that God is with us always. Click To Tweet

It isn’t always said in exactly those words, but it is given as the reason David should have courage during the building of the temple, and over and over again as the reason Moses, Joshua, and the Israelites should have courage during their journey into the Promised Land.

Every time we feel short on confidence or timid, or when we lack the resolve to do the right thing, we are literally lacking courage. In those times, it is so important to remember and fully accept that God will never forget about us or leave us to fend for ourselves.

Are you facing a situation in which you need to have strengthened confidence or a bold heart (aka, courage)? If you feel up to it, comment below or head on over to the Catching Courage Community on Facebook and share with us how you can apply this to your situation. I promise, it’ll be worth it!

Catch ya later,

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