Proverbs 1:7

'Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord' echoes the wisdom maxim that 'the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.' Paul grounds his persuasion of others in this reverent fear, coherent with the judgment-seat context just prior. The phrase is a recognizable wisdom formula, supporting a deliberate allusion.

'There is no fear in love; perfect love casts out fear' stands in deliberate tension with the wisdom maxim that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. John transforms the servile fear of judgment into the boldness of perfected love, a development of the biblical fear-of-God tradition.

The summons to 'exercise yourself toward godliness' and refuse profane fables echoes the wisdom tradition's contrast between the fear of the LORD and the folly that 'despises wisdom and instruction.' Godliness here functions much as the OT 'fear of the LORD.'

Paul completes holiness 'in the fear of God,' the wisdom tradition's foundational posture ('the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge'). The phrase is idiomatic across the OT, so volume is low and recurrence diffuse, but the wisdom resonance is genuine and coheres with Paul's ethical exhortation. Contested because 'fear of God' is a stock biblical idiom rather than a specific citation.

The summary that the churches were 'walking in the fear of the Lord' and were built up draws on the wisdom idiom of life ordered by the fear of the LORD. Diffuse stock biblical phrase; low volume, no single source.

'The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.' The wisdom maxim that proper fear is owed to God alone undergirds the redirection of fear in 10:28, but the connection is general rather than verbal.