Grapes on De-Vine

Feast # 3 to the God of Hope
The third feast
The Feast of "The God of Hope"

Now the God of hope—Literally, “the God of the hope,” because He is the author of that hope and therein His grace is set before both Jew and Gentile in Christ. The hope is not mere expectancy; it carries with it the assurance of faith.

Fill you with all joy and peace in believing. This is a petition to the God of hope that it might come to them "in believing"; in the way of faith, and the exercise of that grace; for joy comes this way; faith and joy go together; where one is, the other is also; and as the one increases, so does the other; a believing view of interest in Christ is attended with joy unspeakable, and full of glory: and so peace comes in at the door of faith: there is no true peace till a soul is brought to believe in Christ; and that is promoted and increased by repeated acts of faith on Christ, or by a constant living by faith on him.



that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.

“And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed” (Deut. 31:8).

“For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps. 30:5).

“‘With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,’ says the Lord, your Redeemer” (Isa. 54:8).

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,

And come to Zion with singing,

With everlasting joy on their heads.

They shall obtain joy and gladness,

And sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:10).

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance” (Rom. 5:3).

“Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort” (Ps. 119:76).

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God” (Ps. 42:11).

Great is His faithfulness, the God of our Hope

• My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-gedi.​
• Behold, You are fair, my love; behold, You are fair; You have the eyes of a dove.​

In the tabernacle in the desert, the Holy place, the place were the priest worked, there was the shew bread, ((Jesus is the bread of life)). Also there was the candlestick,(( Jesus is the light of the world)). The lamp used oil to burn, ((the symbol of the Holy Spirit.)) The Holy Spirit shines light upon the Word of God to illuminate Him to us in communication with Him meant for our edification. In effect that's what feasting is .... but I think we have the picture already... A little word study is revealing.

We need to truly eat of the Lamb. Outward symbolism, like eating of the actual shewbread as the priests were allowed to do, but now in the inward way of assimulating His Word into us, for we are as He is in the sight of God. Changing from glory to glory as the revealing transforms because our own new creation selves are also revealed.
'Sin consciousness' seems to be no problem for us but 'righteousness consciousness' is badly needed.

“Grace” in the developed sense is found no less than 106 times in 98 verses in the NT. It is indeed a defining term of the Christian faith, for the Father, as the “God of all grace,” has chosen to call “us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus.”

The actual feasting of our eyes on the Holy One goes beyond just the reading of the Word. The feast is the shining of the Holy Spirit, the revealing by the Father, of the things of Him. This is what the church's foundation stands upon.

"the God of glory" "the God of patience and consolation," "the God of hope"

"the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation . . ." "the God of love"

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly" and "the God of all grace"

To Him we owe ALL glory and ALL honor and ALL of our praise. Amen

Dave-W said:

I believe that to be a misapplication....

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which part? not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Dave-W said:

While there is everything right with sincerity and truth; Paul is talking about actually celebrating Passover. “Let us keep the feast...”

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Here's a few views from modern Christianity


Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

1Co 5:8

Verse 8. Let us keep the feast. Margin, Holy day--eortazwmen. This is language drawn from the paschal feast, and is used by Paul frequently to carry out and apply his illustration. It does not mean literally the paschal supper here--for that had ceased to be observed by Christians--nor the Lord's Supper particularly; but the sense is, "As the Jews when they celebrated the paschal supper, on the slaying and sacrifice of the paschal lamb, put away all leaven as emblematic of sin, so let us, in the slaying of our sacrifice, and in all the duties, institutions, and events consequent thereon, put away all wickedness from our hearts as individuals, and from our societies and churches. Let us engage in the service of God by putting away all evil."

Not with old leaven. Not under the influence, or in the indulgence of the feelings of corrupt and unrenewed human nature. The word leaven is very expressive of that former or old condition, and denotes the corrupt and corrupting passions of our nature before it is renewed.


Geneva Bible Footnotes

g. Let us lead our whole life as it were a continual feast, honestly and uprightly.



John Wesley's Notes on the Bible

1Co 5:8

Verse 8. Therefore let us keep the feast - Let us feed on him by faith. Here is a plain allusion to the Lord's supper, which was instituted in the room of the passover. Not with the old leaven - Of heathenism or Judaism. Malignity is stubbornness in evil. Sincerity and truth seem to be put here for the whole of true, inward religion.

Dave-W said:

The Corinthian church was not “Modern Christianity.”

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Nor was Paul demanding Gentiles to follow Jewish law. Jerusalem established that very early on.

I find it extrodinary tho that the OC had seven feasts and the NC has also seven of God's attributes highlighted.

Dave-W said:

Not demanding. But since much of the Corinth congregation was Jewish, (right next door to the synagogue) The Jews were (and are) still required to observe Passover and the gentiles were encouraged to participate as well.

As to that being established (Acts 15) early on, it applied ONLY to Gentile converts; Not Jews at all and the requirements for God Fearers is not recorded.

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I'm in a discussion on this topic @ https://www.christianforums.com/threads/jesus-and-paul.8080936/ which is a better place to discuss further.


And I think you and I have already discussed much on this topic @ https://www.christianforums.com/threads/hannahs-prayer.7991958/

Hebrews 13
11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. 13 Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. 15 Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.

I love how God Himself drew the picture of His own hermeneutics of Mercy and Justice, offering the interpretative clue within the text of the book of Jonah, in the form of shelter, shade and wind. (re: Jonah 4:5-11) In this can be seen (individually) how His ways are so much higher than our own while also (nationally) how the OC saints were shaded by the law but tribulation came from the wind of change to those who didn't accept Gentile/Jewish/bond/free/etc inclusiveness of the new covenant as seen in the destruction of temple, sacrifices and priesthood (the book of Hebrews). Jonah would rather have died than see Nineveh saved.

The old covenant only had the shadow of good things to come, protecting them in the land of promise from temporal evil, but emptied out and faded away in captive dispersion. Jonah only enjoyed the shade for one day before the caterpillar came and ate it gone. Then came the heat of the east wind. Jonah’s values were backwards. He cared more for the plant life than he did for the higher forms of life of animals and human beings. He was being fleshly and not of soul or spirit. Thankfully God is nothing like that and cares about all of our life and salvation. So in the final analysis, like Jonah it doesn’t necessarily follow that the church of God can build it’s own little shelter to watch the walls of our own little Nineveh tumble down.


Elijah also had extreme despondency but his was in zeal for the glory of God, Isaiah 33:16 while Jonah mourned the loss of his own glory. Philippians 2:21


God provided both the whale and the worm just as He provides for both the huge and little things in our lives. Our own shelters, built with human hands, do nothing against God's other provisions of wind and scorching sun. Raining fire upon Nineveh isn't always a part of His plan no matter how much we think it should be. Jonah 1:12, Jonah 4:3, Jonah 4:8 Jonah lost the vine for protection but he still had God. And from that picture we can see God and humankind reasoning together to come to the fuller understanding. Ephesians 4:13-14


Once again, in the final analysis, conformity to His Divine Will, by continuing or ceasing from a work, as the Lord’s servant, is compared to the vanity of doing things in vain without His blessing. We can’t all make the sun stand still. Instead we look to the Captain of Salvation and realize (the reality of) where our post did began and on what He says it ends, according to our posts as ambassadors of Christ with a ministry of reconciliation to show forth His manifold wisdom to the principalities. Ephesians 3:10-11 not to mention the great cloud of witnesses. In this we must not forsake gathering together. So be it in prayer for His continued work in phronesis wisdom.

Some pickin' and a grinning’