Linguists tell us one of the most difficult languages to learn is English, yet at the same time it’s one of the most structured languages. I have often wondered about how the complexity of the English language allows for many of the ambiguous statements. There are many words and phrases that, depending on where the emphasis is placed, can create totally different meanings.
Using the following phrase, I can create different questions based on which word I emphasise: ‘what is this thing called love?’ And if I just allow the words to flow, it can be seen as a philosophical question where someone is pondering the emotion of love.
Whereas if I say, ‘What is this thing called, love?’ The insertion of a comma after “called” changes it to a question directed at a person they have an emotional attachment with. The nuanced meaning of some words came to me as I was recently reading about the use of the word “hope.”
For most people, the word “hope” is aligned with a wish for good things to come at some stage in the future. For followers of Jesus, hope has a very different meaning.
One New Testament scholar commented that hope is ‘a word that the inhabitants of the ancient world distrusted.’ Even in today’s modern context, there are those who believe the word hope has no place in our vocabulary and have no room for hope in their approach to life.
For followers of Jesus, hope that is embedded in the Lord Jesus Christ has been found to be the true hope that can be trusted. Jesus Himself, while on the cross at Calvary said to those nearby “Take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Throughout his extensive writings that are found through out the New Testament of the Christian Bible, the Apostle Paul spends a lot of time talking about hope. For example, in Romans 15:13, he wrote: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” In 1 Corinthians 13,:13, he wrote these words: “And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love."
Also in Romans 5:3-5, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that our suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.”
Paul’s focus on hope in the Lord Jesus was not mere wishful thinking, but a hope that was solid and concrete. For example, he knew that his coworker Timothy’s visit would bring joy to the Philippian people, and to Paul himself upon Timothy’s return with the news about them. With hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul knew good would come; it was not a wish laced with optimism.
Our prayer for our students and their families is that they will come to know the hope in Jesus that is characterised as something that be trusted—something solid and concrete. We pray the character of our students would reflect this hope, and that they prove to be young men and women who are solid, trusted and committed to bringing joy and peace to others.
The hope we speak of in Jesus Christ is our distinctive as a community. It is the outworking of this hope that brings good to our world, allows our community to be counted on and ultimately brings honour and glory to our Lord Jesus Christ.