In the Christian life faith has the priority, but hope the primacy

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Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God. Thus, faith believes God to be true, hope awaits the time when this truth shall be manifested; faith believes that he is our Father, hope anticipates that he will ever show himself to be a Father toward us; faith believes that eternal life has been given to us, hope anticipates that it will some time be revealed; faith is the foundation upon which hope rests, hope nourishes and sustains faith. For as no one except him who already believes His promises can look for anything from God, so again the weakness of our faith must be sustained and nourished by patient hope and expectation, lest it fail and grow faint.… By unremitting renewing and restoring, it [hope] invigorates faith again and again with perseverance.’ Thus in the Christian life faith has the priority, but hope the primacy. Without faith’s knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a utopia and remains hanging in the air. But without hope, faith falls to pieces, becomes a fainthearted and ultimately a dead faith. It is through faith that man finds the path of true life, but it is only hope that keeps him on that path. Thus it is that faith in Christ gives hope its assurance. Thus it is that hope gives faith in Christ its breadth and leads it into life.

PostMoltmannian: In the Christian life faith has the priority, but hope the primacy

Donald Trump and King David as ‘Flawed’ Leaders in Recent Political Discourse

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One definition of wisdom as the ability to see to the end of a matter. In many ways, the comparison between Trump and David is only too apt, sans any of David’s godly qualities.  To suggest that Trump, like King David, has flaws but can carry America to the heights of greatness misses the direction of David’s life and nation in the wake of his ‘flaws,’ which only began with his mistreatment of a woman and a foreign man, but eventually tore through the whole nation. I dare say that two supreme court justices couldn’t even offset those effects.

Theological Miscellany