Hope definition

America's founding and early history grew from a culture better acquainted with the Bible than our society is today. You could quote scripture in the expectation that people would generally know what you're talking about and approve of it.

You could even write a dictionary and use Bible references to illustrate your definitions . . as Daniel Webster did in his dictionary of 1828. Check out the way that HOPE was defined:

2. Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense.

A well founded scriptural hope is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.

3. That which gives hope; he or that which furnishes ground of expectation, or promises desired good. The hope of Israel is the Messiah.

The Lord will be the hope of his people. Joel 3:16.