Psalm 49:13 English Standard Version (ESV) This is the path of those who have foolish confidence; yet after them people approve of their boasts.[a] Selah

Footnote [a]  Or and of those after them who approve of their boasts

2 Corinthians 3:3-5 English Standard Version

3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,

Those with foolish confidence will always seek out those who will agree with them. They will leave together and break fellowship when insisting they are right.

Those who have confidence in God do well to remember that the message is more important than the messenger. In verse 3 above we should remember we are a letter from Christ who is the author and how we present ourselves in that delivery represents Christ not ourselves.

1 Peter 1:22 English Standard Version (ESV) Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

Ephesians 4:15 English Standard Version (ESV) Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Maturity comes by obeying the truth and our love becomes more effective as we grow in Christ in every way, not in knowledge and the desire to be right.

Christ will not only give us a word in due season, He will show us how to deliver it in wisdom so that others will not be offended in the offering. The truth is delivered by the Spirit and received by the Spirit to work in each of us as God wills us to receive it with the spiritual eyes and ears He has given us.

Deliver the truth, don’t try to explain it.

John 1:5 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (ESV)

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (KJV)

And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. (ASV)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light. (CEB)

Here are four versions of the same passage. Others are represented by these four thought processes. Those translations may have been chosen to reach different people who by education, familiarity and conditioning would best comprehend the meaning behind the Greek.

It is likely that we all have one version we comprehend better than the others. We call that preferred version, our go version to when it comes to doing our daily bible studies. We want to understand in a way that makes the most sense to us.

We all know someone that uses another version for their own purposes. Now comes my point to choosing this course of writing.

Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. (no version listed)

Can we agree that darkness is the absence of light.

Now we must examine the qualities of light. Light is only visible because it strikes an object. We can argue that we can see the stars which are light but only because that light has stuck our retina. Without the eye, light still exists but is not seen.

Light reveals because we can see, we have eyes.

Isaiah 42:18 English Standard Version

Israel’s Failure to Hear and See

18 Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!

God is speaking to us about spiritual blindness and deafness.

Eyes and ears that only perceive the world are worldly. They are in spiritual darkness.

The truth in scripture is only revealed to spiritual eyes. The spirit does not care which translation is used.

What happens to us when others do not see what we see?