When our children are scared of bugs and spiders in their rooms, we might find ourselves saying, “They’re more scared of you than you are of them.” I honestly have no idea if that’s true. At least one of my kids is pretty freaked out by spiders at the moment. But I was reminded of this idea – they’re more scared of you than you are of them – when someone pointed out something in Joshua that I had never noticed. In Joshua 2, Rahab tells the Israeli spies several times that the people of Jericho were terrified of the Israelites. She says; “the fear of you has fallen upon us,” “all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you,” and “our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above…” Because of what God had done to deliver Israel, the people were terribly afraid of the Israelites. Consider this for a moment. Who are these people who are afraid? They are the ones that the Israelites feared! When the Israelites sent out the spies, they said these people were fearsome giants, that the Israelites had no chance against them. Famously, only Joshua and Caleb were ready to follow God and go forth. The Israelites were terrified. But it turned out the people in the land were more afraid of the Israelites than the Israelites were of them. Ironically, the Canaanites had more faith in God’s power than the Israelites. The primary lesson here is to trust God and fear Him alone. But there is another application worth considering, particularly as it comes to non-believers and evangelism. Chances are, non-believers are more scared of us than we are of them. They might be afraid Christians will judge them, God won’t accept them, or Christian churches will look down on them. We might be scared of taking the gospel to others. But chances are, non-Christians are scared of how we might treat them. We tend to think we have to overcome the hostility of others toward us. That may be true sometimes. But it is probably more likely that we will have to overcome their fear of us. Which means that we will have to work hard to be gracious, inviting, hospitable, and warm as we take the gospel to those afraid of the people of God in their midst.