Well, Hebrews 11:1 says

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

So, faith is the next step up from hope: being really sure. You can certainly hope for things without being sure they will come to pass, but having faith means being sure. (Bit embarrassing then, if you have faith in the wrong thing…)

But I’m not convinced we should understand the words in this way everywhere. Take, for instance, 1 Peter 1:21:

Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

I don’t think that you can easily understand this verse using the simple definitions from Hebrew 11:1. So faith and hope are closely related, and faith is stronger than hope, more sure, but it’s hard to be definitive about the difference.

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