With Crossway announcing their new updates to the ESV, I wonder if translations have considered more careful use of language like “anxiety” (instead of “worry,” “concern,” “anguish,” or “distress”), especially given its associations with more precise medical meanings today.

Verses that use the word “anxiety” have not infrequently been illegitimately used to condemn people, as if experiencing distress and anguish is sinful, or as if conditions like PTSD (an anxiety disorder) are moral failings (i.e., a failure to “trust God”).

And before anyone @’s me: Yes, the work of translation requires dealing accurately with the original languages. 🙂 But to convey accurately the meaning of that original also requires careful attention to the associations and meaning of words and phrases in the receptor language (in this case English). Simplistic approaches to translation (the stereotypical first year seminary student) exclusively attend to the former, neglecting the latter (simply taking it for granted).

Consider, the Jesus who told us “do not be anxious” (Mt 6:25), clearly experienced anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:36–46). Likewise, the same Paul who said he knew the key to contentment (Phil 4:11-4) spoke of his daily “anxiety” for the churches (2 Cor 11:28), which I don’t think was him confessing his sin! The same Bible that says to cast our “anxieties” on God (1 Pet 5:7) models to us godly laments (see a good third of the Psalter) in which that “casting” clearly does not mean the absence or disappearance of such anxieties.

Yes, failing to trust God is sin. But experiencing distress, anguish, or stress is not sin, nor is it necessarily brought on due to personally moral failing; and we error—and often times do much damage—when we assume so. For instance, if you’re walking through the woods and encounter a grizzly bear, experiencing some anxiety (stress) is not sinful; it’s a healthy (God-given!) survival mechanism.

I think more care could be taken in how we translate these passages referencing “anxiety,” given that word’s contemporary associations. Too often such verses then get misapplied to condemn people experiencing abuse or distress from other terrible circumstances.