We walk by faith, not by sight
2 Corinthians 4:16-18; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10.
What leads up to it
Paul is writing to the church at Corinth about hardship. In chapter 4 he has described being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down, and he turns from the outer self that is wasting away to the inner self renewed day by day.
What it says
The body is a tent that will be taken down; a building from God waits. While we live in the tent we groan, and we are away from the Lord. "For we walk by faith, not by sight" is Paul's reason for being confident anyway: what can be seen is temporary, and what cannot be seen is eternal.
What it may tell us
Paul is not writing about blindness. He is writing about living toward something you cannot yet see, with a body that is failing. A blind reader hears the verse with a second meaning laid over the first, and both are true to the text: faith is how anyone walks who cannot see where the road goes.
From Brian
I have slowly come to having this as my verse, because it took a while to learn to walk by faith. This is true for those transitioning to non-visual means in life as well. It takes some time to learn to trust new methods and tools, like a white cane or a screen reader.
One of my first true walk-by-faith moments came during rehabilitation training at the Hines VA hospital outside Chicago. At the end of training I did a drop-off test: I was let out of a car in a suburban business district with the task of finding a grocery store about five blocks away on my own. Unless I got into serious physical danger, I was not to be helped. I had to trust my new skills to make that trip without any sight. It was terrifying, exhilarating and liberating all at once.
Other voices
Open: other blind people and their families will be asked the same question, and their answers will appear here with their permission.
The place and the time
What the old books and the archaeologists can add. Each paragraph names its source.
Matthew Henry read the verse as being about seeing God. "We have not the vision and fruition of God, as of an object that is present with us," he wrote; "faith is for this world, and sight is reserved for the other world," and the Christian's duty is "to walk by faith, till we come to live by sight." His "sight" is the face-to-face vision of God after death. He does not mention blindness.
Source: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706-1721), on 2 Corinthians 5.
What is faith in this sentence? The dictionaries agree it is trust. Easton's: its "primary idea is trust." The 1915 encyclopedia, explaining Hebrews 11, insists faith is not "a faculty of second sight" but "simply reliance upon a God known to be trustworthy," which lets the believer "treat the future as present and the invisible as seen." That is close to what a blind traveller does with a trusted guide.
Source: Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), entry "Faith"; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), entry "Faith."
"Walk" here is the Bible's ordinary word for how a person lives. The 1915 encyclopedia lists this verse with "walk in the light" and "walk by the Spirit" as figures for conduct. The Greek word for "sight" means a thing seen, an outward appearance; no source on the shelf discusses it in this verse, so what exactly Paul set against faith is left for a word study.
Source: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), entries "Walk," "Fashion" and "Appearance."
The passage
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day.
17 For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison.
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
2 For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,
3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.
4 For while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life.
5 And it is God who has prepared us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a pledge of what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident, although we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.
7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.
8 We are confident, then, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
9 So we aspire to please Him, whether we are at home in this body or away from it.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.