2 Corinthians 5:7: walking without being able to check
7For we walk by means of faith, and not by sight.
The sentence interrupts an argument in order to justify the confidence just asserted. It reads as a statement, but it is doing the work of a reason.
Short answer
2 Corinthians 5:7 states that the walking is done on faith rather than on what can be seen. The line appears inside a passage about the frailty of the body and the hope of what comes after it, and it serves to justify the confidence Paul has just declared.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
The line is short enough to fit anywhere, which is why it circulates loose. Reading the paragraph around it changes the subject: Paul is not talking about hard decisions or planning. He is talking about death.
Where this verse appears
The chapter opens by comparing the body to a tent that comes apart, and speaks of a permanent dwelling. It is a reflection on physical frailty and on what follows it.
The previous verse says that living in the body means living away from the Lord, and that even so there is confidence. Our verse is the ground of that confidence. The one after it picks the argument back up, which confirms that this is an interruption.
What it says
The verb is walk, and that is not a detail. The line does not talk about believing, it talks about moving. It describes how a person conducts themselves in practice when what they are waiting for is not available to be checked.
The opposition is not between faith and reason. It is between faith and sight — between leaning on what can be verified now and leaning on what was said. Confusing the two produces the caricature that believing requires switching off thought, which is not what is written here.
What the line does not authorise is ignoring evidence in practical decisions. In context, what is out of sight is the destination beyond death, not the outcome of an investment or a course of treatment. Using the verse to waive prudence changes its subject.
What to do with it today
It is a verse for days with no confirmation: nothing changed, nobody answered, the result never came. What it prescribes is movement — carrying on in the direction already being walked. It asks for no enthusiasm and no certainty. It asks that absence of sight does not become absence of step.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, today I can see none of what you promised. Give me legs to keep walking anyway. Amen.