By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’ This well-known quotation contains the three theological virtues, but also raises some interesting questions about what is meant by ‘charity’ here. So let’s take a closer look at this statement.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The peace which passeth understanding’ has become a well-known biblical phrase, and it originates in a couple of verses found in St. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians. In Philippians 4:6-7, we read:
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The Book of Hosea is one of the twelve short prophetic books which conclude the canonical Old Testament. For this reason, Hosea is often known as one of the ‘minor’ prophets, because this book, and the other eleven short books which make up ‘the twelve’, are less lengthy and sweeping than, say, the Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah (which precede them in the Bible).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The Book of Esther has a surprising claim to fame: it’s the only book in the Bible in which the word ‘God’ does not appear. (Curiously, it is also the only biblical book to mention the country of India, when the author is describing the breadth of the Persian empire.)
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The quotation ‘blessed are the peacemakers’ appears in the Sermon on the Mount, the address made by Jesus Christ to his followers, and recorded in the Gospels. This one speech (although, as discussed in this analysis of Jesus’ sermon, it may well have been a collection of sayings and teachings from numerous speeches Jesus gave) is a bit like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, about which someone once quipped that ‘there are too many quotations in it’.