Query for page content, and query for posts on the same page?

Question

I'm having trouble with trying to make a blog listing page, I have a page in Wordpress called Blog. Within this is some written content and that's it. I'm using the following query to make it output the content of that page:

<?php if ( have_posts() ) while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
    <h2>Clever Thinking</h2>
    <p><?php the_content(); ?> </p>
<?php endwhile; ?>

This all works fine. Below that, I'm trying to create a query to all my general posts, with a pagination, displays four posts per page.

<!-- Fetch blog posts -->
        <?php 
            // The query for 4 posts
            $query = new WP_Query( 'posts_per_page=4' );

            // Output the results of the query
            if ( $query->have_posts() ) : 


            while ( $query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
                <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

            <?php endwhile; ?>
            <!-- end of the loop -->

            <!-- pagination here -->

            <?php wp_reset_postdata();

            // If no results appear
            else : ?>
                <p><?php _e( 'Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.' ); ?></p>
            <?php endif; ?>

But this part is apparently not correct as I do not get anything, not even the posts error message, so the function is not even firing? I can't work out why this query would not work.

Answer 1

Use query link this. You are checking posts in $the_query. but you have used $query.

<?php 

    $custom_query = new WP_Query( 'posts_per_page=4' );

    if ( $custom_query->have_posts() ) :

      while ( $custom_query->have_posts() ) : $custom_query->the_post(); ?>

          <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

      <?php endwhile;

    else :

        get_template_part( 'content', 'none' );

    endif;

    wp_reset_postdata();

?>