WORDS OF HOPE

A Word Study on the Biblical Meaning of Hope

Today I began a word study on the biblical meaning of the word “hope”. Our church’s theme verse states that the Christian has been “born again to a living hope” (I Peter 1:3). But what really constitutes a Biblical hope? That is what we seek to answer in this study.

I am afraid that the way we use the word “hope” today is far different than the way it is used in the Bible. We may say that we are “hoping” for something even though it is in reality merely “wishful thinking” - “I hope that I will get a raise”; “I hope I will win this contest”; etc.

Usually, without any basis in reality, we “hope” that something good will happen to us in the unforeseen future. But this idea of “wishful thinking” or of “baseless desires” should not be confused with the idea of the believer’s hope as found in the Scriptures! We may safely say, in light of our study thus far, that the modern concept of hope is totally foreign to the Biblical concept! In fact, we may venture to state that the chief idea of “hope” in the Bible is that of confident expectation based on the promises of God.

As we dig a little deeper in our study of the word “hope”, we note that this word is found in its various forms (hope, hoped, hoping, etc) over 140 times in the English of the King James Version of the Bible. Furthermore, behind those 140 uses there are a dozen or so different Hebrew words representing the 75 times this word is found in the Old Testament and yet only one Greek word (plus one compound of it) representing the 66 occurrences in the New Testament. We also have identified at least five distinct word pictures within the etymology of the Hebrew words so used.

We have found, therefore, that there are a number of word pictures behind this Biblical term that help to illustrate its Scriptural meaning, and there are numerous passages that serve to demonstrate it. So, it should be well worth our time and effort to look first at the various synonyms for this word “hope” as found in the original languages of the Old and New Testaments, and then at the many scriptures in which these synonyms are used. When we are done, we should have completed a fairly comprehensive word study and, as a result, we should have a much deeper understanding of what it really means to have a living hope!

So, please join me here each week for another segment as we endeavor to take a deeper look at the Biblical Words of Hope.