Showing posts with label word clouds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label word clouds. Show all posts

Sunday, October 15, 2023

A Living Hope

St Paul famously taught that the three greatest gifts of God's Spirit are faith, hope, and love -- and the greatest of these is love. Recently I have been studying each of these, and today am contemplating hope. To get a fresh view, I wanted a word cloud of the verses in the New Testament that discuss hope*: 

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The word cloud shows the words most commonly associated with hope in the New Testament by use in the same verse. In the AV ("King James") translation, "trust" is actually used as a translation of hope in many cases. The prominence of "trust" in the word cloud is because the thought or feeling of "trust" is so similar to "hope" that it can be a translator's judgment call which way to translate it. 

Paul's famous passage discusses faith, hope, and love specifically as gifts of the Spirit. The  word cloud gives us the bigger picture throughout the New Testament: the scriptures trace the reason for hope to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, often as part of the same thought: 

Hope and God the Father

  • And have hope toward God ... that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. Acts 24:15 
  • ... the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: Acts 26:6 
  • ... rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:2 
  • And hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Romans 5:5 
  • Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:13 
  • That at that time you were without Christ ... strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: Ephesians 2:12 
  • To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Colossians 1:27 
  • Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, 2 Thessalonians 2:16 
  • For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe. 1 Timothy 4:10 
  • In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; Titus 1:2 
  • That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Hebrews 6:18 
  • Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 

Hope and Christ Jesus

Some of the verses here were also included when discussing the Father's role in hope, though some here are new: 

  • ... God would make known what is the riches of the glory ... which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Colossians 1:27 
  • Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, 2 Thessalonians 2:16 
  • For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? 1 Thessalonians 2:19 
  • Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; 1 Timothy 1:1 
  • Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; Titus 2:13 
  • Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 

I tend to think of hope only when I notice it is in short supply. And then, because it is in short supply I find it hard to refill. So it seems that hope is something that should be a staple in my walk of faith, and that re-reading these verses with their promises would lead to the faith in Christ that replenishes my hope. If I imagine it depends on my optimism then I mislead myself. It depends on waiting for God, and for Christ. 

* Methodology: searching for underlying Greek words elpizo and elpis by Strong numbers (G1679 or G1680 respectively). English text used an AV "King James" translation, slightly modernized. While those words are typically translated "hope" (66 times), it is also translated "trust" a number of times, and "faith" once. 

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Sunday, October 23, 2022

Book of Proverbs: Word Cloud as an objective check of its emphasis

I often use a word cloud to get an objective overview of a document. I may have my preconceptions about it, but the word cloud software does not share them. Here is an overview of the Book of Proverbs generated by my go-to WordCloud software: 

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This overview can guide my insights: there is a contrast of opposites: foolish or wise, death or life, wicked or righteous. It is grounded in humanity and relations: father and friend and neighbor. The top focus is on a man and the Lord. The book is about the value of being upright, heeding instruction, seeking  knowledge and understanding. These things bring righteousness and honor into life. 

An overview -- much less a word cloud -- is not meant provide a full picture a book, but it can ground our approach. 

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Sunday, June 26, 2022

Psalm 119: Word Cloud

Continuing with a contemplation of Psalm 119, here is a word cloud of it: 

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I like a word cloud for an objective double-check of the main focus. Since the text I used was King James "Authorized Version" text, I excluded the old-era equivalent of words that would normally have been excluded automatically in modern English (art hast hath mine thee thou thy unto). Since Psalm 119 is well-known for focusing on various aspects of the Word of God, it's no surprise that the word cloud shows a focus on the ways in which we refer to the Word of God: commandments, judgments, law, precepts, statutes, testimonies. We also begin to see the connection to the author: concern with shame, or seeking understanding, with an emphasis on "heart" and "hope", "love" and "mercies", "meditate" and "teach". 

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Sunday, June 20, 2021

Word Cloud: The Gospel of Judas

Some years ago I made word clouds of the better-known non-canonical documents that are sometimes labeled as gospels. I have always intended to revisit that and add a word cloud for the Gospel of Judas. Finally, this week, I found the opportune block of time. The source text used is the National Geographic Society 2008 text (the second edition).

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The threshold cutoff for the cloud was the top 50 most frequent word. This one has some points of interest compared to some other documents previously reviewed. 

  1. While Jesus is a major focus, his name takes second place in the word rankings, mentioned less often than "generation". 
  2. "Aeon" is mentioned more than "God". 
  3. The only disciple whose name is in the top 50 words is Judas. 
  4. While other disciples do not make the list, the spirit-being Saklas gets a fair amount of mention and makes the cutoff.
  5. In the Gospel of Judas, one of Jesus' most common actions is laughing, often at the expense of people around him. 
  6. When the name Judas occurs, it is not accompanied by a disambiguation-phrase based on an awareness of more than one man named Judas in the narrative.
  7. The phrase "Holy Spirit" does not occur in the translation that I have. Neither do the names Mary, Joseph, Peter, James, John, Matthew, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, or any of the less-commonly-known disciples, as far as I can find. 
  8. As in more familiar texts, "Truly" here is a translation of Amen, according to the notes from the translator(s).

Thank you for reading!

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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Wesley on Galatians: Word Cloud

To give some more variety to this series, I'd also like to add a word cloud level summary of Wesley's commentary on Paul's epistle to the Galatians, which begins at the linked intro and continues for a few more pages from that link. Now Wesley's commentary is so much shorter than the previous two that at places it's simply a series of asides to his contemporary readers to fill gaps that are possible in background knowledge of that language and culture. Still, in places it does contain theological commentary, and so it will be included in this brief case study here.
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Monday, October 28, 2013

Calvin on Galatians: Word Cloud

Luther was not the only theologian to have written a commentary on Galatians. Here is a word cloud level summary of Calvin's commentary on Galatians. The linked text was cleaned of footnotes, introductory notes, materials on other books, and the translation of the text of Paul's epistle into various languages, leaving just the commentary:

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Sunday, October 27, 2013

Luther on Galatians: Word Cloud

I think I have come across a way to highlight what happens when different denominations study the Bible. It will be the fourth post out from here -- this being the first -- before the results will be plain. I will try to post more often than once a week while I get this theme developed, as this post and the next two behind it are not difficult to develop. So if I could ask your patience for a few brief posts, I think the point will become clear fairly soon.

This is a word cloud summary of a Bible commentary -- specifically, Luther's commentary on Paul's letter to the Galatians. I found the same on-line version in several places, and it was unfortunately an abridgement. I used the text from Project Gutenberg, with the introductory comments and closing notes omitted. I'd be glad to repeat the exercise with the full text at some point if that is available in English. But for all that, here we can see Luther's emphasis as he discusses the book of Galatians:

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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Word Cloud: Synod of Dort (A Calvinist Confession of Faith)

This continues a long-running project of mine to analyze different Christian theologies, with an ultimate goal of comparing them not only against each other, but also against the New Testament. The Synod of Dort is an early Calvinist confession. The text here was taken from an online source and again is presented without further comment for the moment.



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