The Doctrines of Faith, Hope, and Love

The Doctrines of Faith, Hope, and Love

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI

Biblical Authority Ministries, October 1, 2025 (Donate)

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13, NKJV)

Faith, hope, and love are core doctrines of Christianity. In other words, they are very important. They are often spoken of and explained individually but they are coalesced together because of their unified connection (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 1:3, 5:8).

How important are they? Consider for a brief moment that if someone doesn’t have faith in the Jesus Christ of Scripture and His death, burial, and resurrection, then that person is not saved. See the importance yet? And yet, love is greater than faith!

Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

Let’s dive into these important doctrines.

Faith

Scripturally, the doctrine of faith is the “substance of things hoped for” and the “evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1), producing obedience (obey what God says), perseverance (not swayed to walk away), and spiritual fruit (growing spiritually the knowledge of God and sharing it with others).

Faith is more than a mere nod or approval to revealed truth in the Bible. It means that you cling to that truth in Scripture and live by it. You don’t just say “I agree” and then go and live your life as if you don’t agree—that would be a false faith—or technically “a lack of faith”. Faith, true faith, changes the way you live your life.

Faith is a divine principle planted in the soul by the Spirit of God. Yes, faith comes from God and His Word—which is the Holy Spirit speaking (Romans 10:17; Ephesians 2:8-9). Thus, true faith connects the believer to Christ and rests on Him for justification (from our sins), sanctification (growing in holiness), and eternal life.

Faith has both (1) a doctrinal and (2) a practical side: one must believe what God has spoken, and also rely personally upon Christ for salvation. 

Furthermore, the Christian faith is not a blind faith. Instead, it is a logical, defensible faith unlike all other worldviews and religions that fall short due to inconsistencies, arbitrariness, and cannot account for truth, logic, morality, and knowledge in the first place. Those who deny the Christian faith outlined in Scripture are doing so via a blind faith in relying on man’s fallible and sinful opinions to lead them astray into false, inconsistent faiths.  

There is also a difference between saving faith from historical or temporary faith.  Saving faith trusts God’s promises through Christ alone, and bears fruit and endures. Temporary faith (also called temporal faith) may only acknowledge facts or feel stirred for a season. Temporary faith is superficial and lacks genuine conversion power, lack of personal commitment, and doesn’t persevere.  

Hope

The doctrine of hope is the gracious expectation of promised blessings. Hope is connected to faith. It is because of our faith in what God has said that we look forward to promises extended by God that have not yet happened. Of course, many of these are eternal blessings with eternal life.

Hope rests not on uncertain desires but on the sure word of God, anchored in Christ’s resurrection and the fact that He now intercedes for us to the God the Father.  

Hope purifies the believer, strengthens in trials, and directs the heart toward heaven. This is how hope helps us live a life that is godly, thinking on and doing the things of God. Although, it differs from faith in that faith receives what God has spoken, while hope anticipates what He has yet to fulfill. 

Nevertheless there is an overlapping relationship between faith and hope. Consider the faith of Abraham who looked forward to promises in hope and never saw them realized, but he knew his descendants would. That is a powerful faith. 

Christian hope looks beyond temporary good things in this life to eternal glory, guarding against despair and worldly entanglement. Hope must be grounded in God, not man; otherwise it is but a vain confidence. In Scripture, hope is portrayed as “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:19).

Love

There are various forms of love. In short, we love because God loves us and fills us with His love.

The doctrine of love, which includes charity, is the highest grace. It is the fulfilling of the law, and the bond of Christian perfection through Christ. It springs from God’s own nature—“for God is love”—and flows into the believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit.

This love embraces God as supreme and extends to mankind universally, even to enemies. Recall Christ said that we are to love our enemies.

 “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. (Luke 6:27, NKJV)

Without love, other gifts or duties are empty (1 Corinthians 13). Love shows itself in our patience, humility, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice, making the Christian resemble Christ.

While faith receives and hope anticipates, love endures forever, being the essence of eternal life in Christ. So, Scripture exalts love as “the greatest of these” (1 Corinthians 13:13), the crowning virtue that harmonizes faith and hope in godliness.

The four main types of love  (in the Greek New Testament) commonly discussed are agapē, philia, storgē, and eros.

Agape (ἀγάπη)

It is the highest and most selfless form of love, often called “divine love.” It seeks the good of others regardless of merit, feelings, or reciprocity. This type of love is also demonstrated by God’s love for man through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross (John 3:16; Romans 5:8).

Christ loving sacrifice; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (Chat GPT)

Agape is different from the other types of love in that it is unconditional, sacrificial, and rooted in God’s character rather than human emotion.

Philia / Philadelphia (φιλέω / φιλαδελφία)

Often called Philadelphia is brotherly love which is the affection shared among friends and within the family of faith. This is why the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s motto is the “city of brotherly love”!

Philadelphia is the friendship type of love that has a kind warmth, companionship, and mutual delight. It is found in passages like Romans 12:10 (“be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love”). It obviously has distinctions from agape in that it emphasizes friendship affection based on relationship, not a pure selfless sacrifice.

Storge (στοργή)

This love is the natural, familial love—affection between parents and children or among close relatives. It is evident throughout Scripture through examples of parents, children, siblings, and so on.

Even so, it is rarely named in Scripture directly, but appears in compound form (e.g., “astorgos” which means “without natural affection,” Romans 1:31, see also 2 Timothy 3:3) which condemns the breakdown of family love in a sinful world.

It differs from agape and philia by being instinctive and rooted in family bonds rather than choice or covenant.

Eros (ἔρως)

This is the love that many think of and want to watch romance movies about! Eros is romantic or sexual love between a husband and wife. Although the word itself does not appear in the New Testament.

Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

The concept of this love, however, is acknowledged in Scripture in the context of marital intimacy (Song of Solomon; 1 Corinthians 7). We also find something like this love in ancient Roman culture called Ludus. It is a Latin word meaning playful or flirtatious love that could lead to Eros.

Eros is unique because it is passion-driven and physical, whereas agape is spiritual and sacrificial, and philia is relational friendship.

Scripture also mentions philautia (self-love, usually negative) and commends xenia (hospitality). These next three are not discussed as often but are worth mentioning and delineating.

Philautia (φιλαυτία) – “love of self”

It is found in 2 Timothy 3:2, describing the state of sinful men at a particular time: “men will be lovers of themselves.” Philautia disintegrated into a self-centered love. Sadly, it is quite common in our culture today.

Uniquely about this love is that is typically negative in Scripture, referring to selfishness or self-centeredness, rather than healthy self-respect. It is what happens when sinful minds take love and distort it. It is inwardly focused, whereas biblical love (agapē, philia) is outward and self-giving.

Xenia (ξενία) – “hospitality” or “love for strangers”

Although not specifically named in Scripture this love was conceptually in Scripture. It is a strong cultural type of love representing your community. It refers to kindness toward outsiders as you represent your nation, tribe, city, etc. 

A good test of this in the modern sense would be sports. This love would be displayed when a home team hosts a visiting sports teams and their fans to their stadium, field, or arena! Do you welcome them in Christ's love or taunt them in an unchristian-like fashion? 

Rival teams and fans (like Cardinals and Cubs) should still respect and welcome one another. This is a type of Xenia love; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

In the Old Testament, sojourners visiting and staying in your area were to be treated well and laws were lovingly in place to prevent them from being mistreated, harassed, and cheated.

Xenia, or hospitality love, is also commanded in the New Testament as well (e.g., Hebrews 13:2; Romans 12:13; 1 Peter 4:9).

Conclusion

Faith, hope, and love are core doctrines. Faith comes under attack with false and blind faiths in sinful cultures. And love also comes under attack in our broken and wicked culture. Even though there are a lot of forms of love, they can still be corrupted by sinful minds and we need to be aware of it.

Although not discussed above, eros in today’s sexualized culture has become a problem leading to lust, adultery, and other sexual deviancies instead of its intended bond between a husband-wife. Philautia can easily become a self-centered warped love. Philadelphia has been sinfully warped in to homosexual lusts in our secular-influenced society.

True forms of love must be guarded based on what God says in His Word. When love is distorted, sin abounds. Love needs to be modelled after Scripture and what God clearly says. Love is patient and love is kind. And God exhibited that love perfectly in His example to us through His Son Jesus Christ and His sacrificial love on the Cross.

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Bodie Hodge, Ken Ham's son in law, has been an apologist since 1998 helping out in various churches and running an apologetics website. He spent 21 years working at Answers in Genesis as a speaker, writer, and researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers News. He was also head of the Oversight Council.  

Bodie launched Biblical Authority Ministries in 2015 as a personal website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a 501(c)(3). He has spoken on multiple continents and hosts of US states in churches, colleges, and universities. He is married with four children. 

 

6000 or 10000

About 6,000 Years or 10,000 Years—Does It Matter?

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI

Biblical Authority Ministries, April 29, 2024 (Donate)

Brief Introduction

In a culture that demands Christians give up the Bible and accept the secular humanist age of the earth at billions of years, it seems the discussion about 6,000 years vs. 10,000 years gets left behind. Yes, biblical creationists unite to battle the secular dating system and that is the “bigger fish to fry,” but at times, we can’t ignore the little fish in the bucket that needs to be cooked up too.

Where Is the Debate?

Statements of Faith from various ministries can range, depending on their ministerial focus—and rightly so. But the foundation of our faith goes back to the early pages of Genesis, so I encourage Christians to take a stand on biblical creation and have a statement to reflect it. Many times, we applaud the way these statements on creation are stated, and in other cases we groan.

Some Christians try to avoid the subject by generically stating that God created. Of course, that leaves room for Christians who mix their Christianity with certain tenets of other religions like humanism’s origins account. For example, when Christians deviate from the Bible in Genesis and deny biblical origins, they are trading it for secular humanistic origins such as evolution, millions of years, and/or the big bang.

But another issue crops up as well. Have you ever seen statements of faith declaring that creation occurred “6,000–10,000 years ago”? Sometimes people put a range because they haven’t researched the subject. But regardless, they want to leave open the possibility of an extended age of the earth. Why? I’ve talked to others who profess to believe the earth is 20,000–30,000 years old. I’ve even spoken with other Christians who claim to believe in biblical creation (i.e., a young earth and six-day creation), but they really believe the earth is about 50,000 years old!

It is the issue of trying to stretch as much time out in the Bible as you can. Why? Is it because we are still influenced by the secular world inundating us with long ages? Do we really think that if we stretch out some dates in the Old Testament we will look better to the world? I suggest not. The world wants you to doubt God’s Word because they doubt God’s Word.

Getting into the Meat—or the “Little Fish” Anyway

So, what is the earth’s age? About 6,000 or 10,000 years or what? Biblical Authority Ministries (as well as Answers in Genesis and others) has carefully placed in the Statement of Faith that:

Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ.[1]

Why do we say it this way? The Bible spans from the beginning of time (creation) until the New Testament was complete, so the logical place for a calculation based on the Bible is from creation to Christ; then we can add in the time from Christ until today. So, we work out the approximate calculation from creation to Christ.

This range from creation to Christ is placed at about 4,000 years, not on a whim but for a very precise reason. We limited the earth’s age to 4,000 years in this stretch in the Statement of Faith because of virtually every chronology based on ancient original language texts (e.g., Masoretic, but also consulting the Samaritan Pentateuch and Dead Sea Scrolls) as well as the Aramaic translations (which are very similar to Hebrew; Aramaic Peshitta, and Aramaic Targum of Jonathan). When calculated, we arrive at the date of about 4,000 years between Creation and Christ.[2]

We have biblical genealogies and chronological data from father to son, given precisely from Adam to Jacob (Israel). Jacob’s grandfather was Abraham.

Abraham is like the pivot point. Both Christian and secular scholars agree that Abraham lived about 2,000 years before Christ. And simple math reveals about 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham. See the chart:

Even from a rough calculation, you only get about 6,000 years when you tally:

 

• Creation to Abraham about 2,000 years
• Abraham to Christ about 2,000 years
• Christ to today about 2,000 years.

You can try to get an extra 1,000 years or so from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the LXX (Septuagint), which was translated just over 2,000 years ago. But it has glitches.[3] For instance, if you add up the translation’s inflated ages in Genesis, Methuselah lived for about a decade after the Flood without being on the Ark. But that is about the extent of it. You still don’t even come close to 10,000 years. The Latin Vulgate follows the Hebrew original and Aramaic translations being other early witnesses to the 4,000 years.

Few realize that to get 10,000 years, you need to put a gap between every single person from Adam to Christ because, really, you are doubling the 4,000 years to 8,000 years between Adam to Christ. No one tries to add 4,000 years from Christ to today and say that Christ lived 6,000 years ago! But if you put an additional person between every name from Adam to Jesus, that would be over 70 missing people in the Luke 3 genealogy. Furthermore, this does damage by neglecting that Jude clearly stated that Enoch was the seventh from Adam (Jude 14).

Naturally, gapping would call into question the integrity and accuracy of the Bible in Genesis 5, Genesis 11, 1 Chronicles 1, Luke 3, and others—which makes this a serious biblical authority issue. It would also call into question the majority of accounts where fathers and sons are discussed as overlapping in the text too. If you can’t trust the Bible in the area of genealogies, then why trust it anywhere? This would be a dangerous step toward unbelief, especially if taught to unsuspecting children.

Others have tried to allege that there are gaps between Noah’s sons and those listed in Genesis 10 at Babel (the splitting of languages where the people were divided on the earth). Again, this doesn’t comport with the lineages given in the Bible.The genealogies are very specific in giving the age of the father when the son is born. However, in some translations of Luke 3:36, there seems to be an extra Cainan. Because of this, some have proposed that there may be gaps in the genealogies. However, one needs to understand this specific instance better. Expositor Dr. John Gill points out,

"This Cainan is not mentioned by Moses in #Ge 11:12 nor has he ever appeared in any Hebrew copy of the Old Testament, nor in the Samaritan version, nor in the Targum; nor is he mentioned by Josephus, nor in #1Ch 1:24 where the genealogy is repeated; nor is it in Beza’s most ancient Greek copy of Luke: it indeed stands in the present copies of the Septuagint, but was not originally there; and therefore could not be taken by Luke from thence, but seems to be owing to some early negligent transcriber of Luke’s Gospel, and since put into the Septuagint to give it authority: I say “early,” because it is in many Greek copies, and in the Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, even in the Syriac, the oldest of them; but ought not to stand neither in the text, nor in any version: for certain it is, there never was such a Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, for Salah was his son; and with him the next words should be connected."[4]

This appears to have been one of a few copyist mistakes that have crept into the manuscripts after Luke wrote the original, inspired manuscript.[5] Early Luke manuscripts do not have this extra reference to Cainan. Others have pointed out how this error could have occurred rather easily.[6]

If one proposes gaps in Genesis 5, the chronological data in the Bible is false, and you are back to the same problem of having an untrustworthy Bible. There is no legitimate reason to introduce gaps into the genealogies—other than the desire to extend the dates based on extra-biblical ideas.

Conclusion

When you leave open the possibility for the earth to be 10,000 years old, you are suggesting that God erred in numerous places in the Bible. My humble suggestion is to be more precise based on the biblical data that is given. It is better to “err” on the side of Scripture than the side of sinful, fallible man’s ideas about the past.

Don’t let the world influence you to doubt the genealogies and chronological data in the Bible. There is no need for stretching—it isn’t going to help anyway. It’s time to reel in that little fish and cook it too!

Further Reading:

• Larry Pierce and Ken Ham, “Are There Gaps in the Genesis Genealogies?,” chapter 5 in The New Answers Book 2, edited by Ken Ham, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008, https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/genealogy/gaps-in-the-genesis-genealogies/
• James Ussher, The Annals of the World, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2003.
• Floyd Nolen Jones, Chronology of the Old Testament, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2005.
• Augustin Calmet, “A General Chronological Table of the Holy Bible,” in Dictionary of the Holy Bible, 947–987

Originally Published at: https://answersingenesis.org/why-does-creation-matter/about-6000-years-or-10000-years-does-it-matter/. Reprinted and Updated with Permission.

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[1] See: “Statement of Faith”, Biblical Authority Ministries,  https://www.biblicalauthorityministries.org/p/blog-page.html; see also “Statement of Faith,” Answers in Genesis, https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith/.

 

[2] Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge, A Flood of Evidence (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2016), 45–51.

 

[3] Bodie Hodge, The LXX Genesis Chronologies—A Closer Look, Biblical Authority Ministries, April 4, 2024, https://www.biblicalauthorityministries.org/2024/04/lxx-vs-hebrew-genesis-5.html.

[4] Dr. John Gill, commentary notes on Genesis 3:36, adapted from the Online Bible.

[5] Copyist mistakes do not affect inspiration or inerrancy. It is the original manuscripts that were inerrant. Even though fallible copyists made mistakes, these things can be traced via textual criticism to preserve the text.

[6] Ken Ham, ed., The New Answers Book 2 (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 2008), 296–297.