Misquoting Philippians Pt. 3
All good things must come to an end, and so, we conclude our series by unpacking one of scripture’s most beloved verses–Philippians 4:13. I mean, who doesn’t love Philippians 4:13? It’s powerful and encouraging. And yet, I can’t think of a more misquoted verse than this one. It’s practically everywhere, almost always taken to mean something it doesn’t. It has literally become a blank check for whatever we want–a slogan for self-empowerment; a declaration of self-achievement and accomplishment; a motto for athletic success hanging from locker rooms all over the nation.
This misquotation and mishandling of Philippians 4:13 doesn't surprise me because, as John Piper once said, “We are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man centered. We are willing to boast in the cross as long as the cross is a witness to our worth.”
That’s a problem. A big problem. Only when God takes his rightful place in our hearts will everything else stand in its proper place in our lives. Until then, we will continue to turn glorious truths like doing all things through Christ on their head. So, how do we quote Philippians 4:13 properly? We are going to answer that question, but first we need to lay a foundation.
Philippians ends the same way it began with Paul echoing, albeit broadly, what Philippians is about: the joy that comes from gospel partnership and gospel progress. In Philippians 4:10-20, Paul expresses his gratitude for the church’s support, past and present, but does so in interesting fashion, almost reluctantly. Look closely at verses 10-17, specifically:
"I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit."
Paul expresses his gratitude to the Philippians, but qualifies every statement of thankfulness. It’s as if Paul says, “thank you all so much, but…” He does this to prevent a misunderstanding on their part. Why? Because Paul does not want the Philippians to think that the comfort their gifts have made possible has in some major way contributed to his ability to cope with the difficulty of being imprisoned.
What made Paul cope with being in prison and the afflictions he faced wasn’t their gifts, it was God. I love this about Paul. The man was unabashedly God-centered. He says in Colossians 1:28-29, "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me."
All God, in all things, all the time. This is why we misquote Philippians 4:13. We take Paul’s words, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” as a witness to our ability to accomplish things through Christ’s strength. We make Philippians 4:13 say something about us, instead of Jesus. We make it about our independence instead of our need to be totally dependent on Christ for everything.
Here is one of those moments where Greek is helpful. Our English translations say, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” but in Greek it actually says, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”
The verse is about position, not performance. But we reverse it. We make the focus our performance instead of our position. In Christ we can do all things. But our self-obsession and narcissism doesn’t allow us to look past ourselves. It always has to be about us–our performance, our acclaim, our fame, our dignity, and our worth.
We want to shine, but we were actually made to reflect. At the tower of Babel people tried to make a name for themselves, and we all know how that turned out. We were made to reflect the glory of God so that God would be made to look great–to look like the all-satisfying treasure he is. But how else do we misquote Philippians 4:13? We take the passage to be talking about enabling, when it is actually talking about enduring.
And Paul endured some terrible things. Consider 2 Corinthians 11:
"Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" (vss. 24-28).
In the next chapter, Paul talks about being taken up to heaven. He then says that God, to keep him from becoming conceited, gave him a thorn in his flesh. He prayed God would remove it, but God replies, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (vs. 9).
What Paul says next is simply amazing, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (vss. 9-10).
Paul experienced abundance and affliction, and both things drove him back to Christ. Philippians 4:13 is not about what you can do, it’s all about what Christ does. Failure to recognize that is the main reason why we misquote it. But there’s more.
What Philippians 4 and 2 Corinthians 11-12 show us is that Christ is the source of our contentment. Let me park there for a moment.
The elusive nature of contentment
Contentment is a disposition or attitude of the heart. It is the heart posture that joyfully rests in God’s providence and grace. In the simplest sense, I would say, contentment is satisfaction and gladness in God. If this is true, and I believe it is, then for most people in the world contentment is elusive. We think we have finally managed to grab ahold of some, but it almost immediately slips out of our hands. Case in point: Tom Brady.
In a 2005 interview with 60 Minutes, the former quarterback said the following:
“Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, “Hey man, this is what is important.” I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think, “God, it’s got to be more than this.” I mean this isn’t, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be.”
In case we forgot, Tom Brady retired with 7 Super Bowl rings. In 2015, a video was released that quoted Brady saying, “You know what my favorite ring is? The next one.” If contentment is real, and it is, it has seemingly eluded Tom Brady. The cry of every human heart, whether rich or poor, is for more. We are constantly telling ourselves, “If I have that job, I’ll matter. If I have that car, I’ll get noticed. If I have that guy or girl, I’ll be happy. If I have that many followers, post these videos and pictures, I’ll be affirmed.”
And what has come to define us is our restlessness, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction. Unlike Paul, we say, “I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be discontent.”
We allow things to compete for our contentment, and what we realize is they never deliver what we think they will. It’s as if our contentment gets kidnapped everyday. I fall victim to the greener grass conspiracy more times than I would care to admit. We all look for something other than God to satisfy the deepest longings of our soul. We experience post-Eden discontentment because we are searching for Sabbath rest and Sabbath satisfaction in all the wrong places. And so contentment remains elusive because sin is pervasive.
Contentment is elusive to us because sin colors everything we do, say, and are. Sin is not just blindness to the true, good, and beautiful, it is also deadness to what makes eternally happy: namely, God. It desensitizes us to the pleasures and providence of God, and suffocates our contentment. When it comes to our sinful search for satisfaction, happiness, and contentment apart from God, we look like Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was a powerful and clever king with some bad habits–he was greedy, deceitful, and murderous. He upset some of the gods by his murdering and lies, and once the gods caught him, they ordered him to the terrible punishment of useless and frustrating labor—he would have to push a huge rock up a steep mountain, only to find that the rock would roll all the way back down again and again and again, forever. All his strength, power, and brilliance were put to the eternal task of accomplishing nothing.
My point is that contentment is Christ sustained, but when we try to sustain it on our own, and we don’t experience the happiness we expected, not only do we sin, we also complain about our circumstances.
Complaining
I think complaint is the universal language of everyone, especially Christians. Stick around church for a while and you’ll see what I mean. Most times we equate complaint with ingratitude. There’s some truth to that. But I think complaint is ultimately distrusting God. It’s an anxious concern that things won’t work out how we want them to. When we do that, we deem God incompetent, unfair, uncaring, and irrelevant. There is a huge difference between complaining to God and complaining about God. The first shows enduring trust in the sovereignty of God. The second shows eroding trust by making God out to be powerless and incapable.
Circumstances are not occasions for complaint, but catalysts that drive us to Christ. That’s why Paul could say, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:11-13).
Paul’s satisfaction and trust in Christ were not independent of his circumstance, but the place where they could grow in gospel soil. Contentment is the fruit of a mindset that knows its limitations, and trusts Christ’s provision and God’s providence. Paul knew that Christ would provide and that God governs, sustains, and guides by his power. That’s why he could be content in any situation.
Contentment includes trusting both. The content Christian believes that God sees, knows, and cares. Believing that is tough sometimes, most times, if we’re honest. We feel as though God is absent in our circumstance and troubles, that we are going to have to go at it alone. But God is there, present in pain, present in trouble, and present in the storms of life. He might be silent, but he is there.
The sufficiency of Christ
The key to contentment for Paul was not Gnosticism, as if it came through secret knowledge, nor was it stoic self-sufficiency. Rather, the key to contentment was Christ-sufficiency in all circumstances. We might not always feel this way, but there is no such thing as an incomplete or deficient Christian. Christ’s divine power has granted all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).
At the moment of salvation, we got all we need. Yes, we mature and grow, but no resource is missing for us as we travel the road to spiritual maturity. There is no need to search for something more because it doesn’t exist. Christ is sufficient. But I think this is hard for us to accept, not in theory, but in practice. We know Christ is sufficient, but live as though we are self-sufficient.
The one thing the self-sufficient person can never do is receive. We must open the clenched fists of self-sufficiency and receive Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel.
Why? Because everything we need is found in him.
This misquotation and mishandling of Philippians 4:13 doesn't surprise me because, as John Piper once said, “We are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man centered. We are willing to boast in the cross as long as the cross is a witness to our worth.”
That’s a problem. A big problem. Only when God takes his rightful place in our hearts will everything else stand in its proper place in our lives. Until then, we will continue to turn glorious truths like doing all things through Christ on their head. So, how do we quote Philippians 4:13 properly? We are going to answer that question, but first we need to lay a foundation.
Philippians ends the same way it began with Paul echoing, albeit broadly, what Philippians is about: the joy that comes from gospel partnership and gospel progress. In Philippians 4:10-20, Paul expresses his gratitude for the church’s support, past and present, but does so in interesting fashion, almost reluctantly. Look closely at verses 10-17, specifically:
"I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit."
Paul expresses his gratitude to the Philippians, but qualifies every statement of thankfulness. It’s as if Paul says, “thank you all so much, but…” He does this to prevent a misunderstanding on their part. Why? Because Paul does not want the Philippians to think that the comfort their gifts have made possible has in some major way contributed to his ability to cope with the difficulty of being imprisoned.
What made Paul cope with being in prison and the afflictions he faced wasn’t their gifts, it was God. I love this about Paul. The man was unabashedly God-centered. He says in Colossians 1:28-29, "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me."
All God, in all things, all the time. This is why we misquote Philippians 4:13. We take Paul’s words, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” as a witness to our ability to accomplish things through Christ’s strength. We make Philippians 4:13 say something about us, instead of Jesus. We make it about our independence instead of our need to be totally dependent on Christ for everything.
Here is one of those moments where Greek is helpful. Our English translations say, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” but in Greek it actually says, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”
The verse is about position, not performance. But we reverse it. We make the focus our performance instead of our position. In Christ we can do all things. But our self-obsession and narcissism doesn’t allow us to look past ourselves. It always has to be about us–our performance, our acclaim, our fame, our dignity, and our worth.
We want to shine, but we were actually made to reflect. At the tower of Babel people tried to make a name for themselves, and we all know how that turned out. We were made to reflect the glory of God so that God would be made to look great–to look like the all-satisfying treasure he is. But how else do we misquote Philippians 4:13? We take the passage to be talking about enabling, when it is actually talking about enduring.
And Paul endured some terrible things. Consider 2 Corinthians 11:
"Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" (vss. 24-28).
In the next chapter, Paul talks about being taken up to heaven. He then says that God, to keep him from becoming conceited, gave him a thorn in his flesh. He prayed God would remove it, but God replies, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (vs. 9).
What Paul says next is simply amazing, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (vss. 9-10).
Paul experienced abundance and affliction, and both things drove him back to Christ. Philippians 4:13 is not about what you can do, it’s all about what Christ does. Failure to recognize that is the main reason why we misquote it. But there’s more.
What Philippians 4 and 2 Corinthians 11-12 show us is that Christ is the source of our contentment. Let me park there for a moment.
The elusive nature of contentment
Contentment is a disposition or attitude of the heart. It is the heart posture that joyfully rests in God’s providence and grace. In the simplest sense, I would say, contentment is satisfaction and gladness in God. If this is true, and I believe it is, then for most people in the world contentment is elusive. We think we have finally managed to grab ahold of some, but it almost immediately slips out of our hands. Case in point: Tom Brady.
In a 2005 interview with 60 Minutes, the former quarterback said the following:
“Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, “Hey man, this is what is important.” I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think, “God, it’s got to be more than this.” I mean this isn’t, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be.”
In case we forgot, Tom Brady retired with 7 Super Bowl rings. In 2015, a video was released that quoted Brady saying, “You know what my favorite ring is? The next one.” If contentment is real, and it is, it has seemingly eluded Tom Brady. The cry of every human heart, whether rich or poor, is for more. We are constantly telling ourselves, “If I have that job, I’ll matter. If I have that car, I’ll get noticed. If I have that guy or girl, I’ll be happy. If I have that many followers, post these videos and pictures, I’ll be affirmed.”
And what has come to define us is our restlessness, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction. Unlike Paul, we say, “I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be discontent.”
We allow things to compete for our contentment, and what we realize is they never deliver what we think they will. It’s as if our contentment gets kidnapped everyday. I fall victim to the greener grass conspiracy more times than I would care to admit. We all look for something other than God to satisfy the deepest longings of our soul. We experience post-Eden discontentment because we are searching for Sabbath rest and Sabbath satisfaction in all the wrong places. And so contentment remains elusive because sin is pervasive.
Contentment is elusive to us because sin colors everything we do, say, and are. Sin is not just blindness to the true, good, and beautiful, it is also deadness to what makes eternally happy: namely, God. It desensitizes us to the pleasures and providence of God, and suffocates our contentment. When it comes to our sinful search for satisfaction, happiness, and contentment apart from God, we look like Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was a powerful and clever king with some bad habits–he was greedy, deceitful, and murderous. He upset some of the gods by his murdering and lies, and once the gods caught him, they ordered him to the terrible punishment of useless and frustrating labor—he would have to push a huge rock up a steep mountain, only to find that the rock would roll all the way back down again and again and again, forever. All his strength, power, and brilliance were put to the eternal task of accomplishing nothing.
My point is that contentment is Christ sustained, but when we try to sustain it on our own, and we don’t experience the happiness we expected, not only do we sin, we also complain about our circumstances.
Complaining
I think complaint is the universal language of everyone, especially Christians. Stick around church for a while and you’ll see what I mean. Most times we equate complaint with ingratitude. There’s some truth to that. But I think complaint is ultimately distrusting God. It’s an anxious concern that things won’t work out how we want them to. When we do that, we deem God incompetent, unfair, uncaring, and irrelevant. There is a huge difference between complaining to God and complaining about God. The first shows enduring trust in the sovereignty of God. The second shows eroding trust by making God out to be powerless and incapable.
Circumstances are not occasions for complaint, but catalysts that drive us to Christ. That’s why Paul could say, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:11-13).
Paul’s satisfaction and trust in Christ were not independent of his circumstance, but the place where they could grow in gospel soil. Contentment is the fruit of a mindset that knows its limitations, and trusts Christ’s provision and God’s providence. Paul knew that Christ would provide and that God governs, sustains, and guides by his power. That’s why he could be content in any situation.
Contentment includes trusting both. The content Christian believes that God sees, knows, and cares. Believing that is tough sometimes, most times, if we’re honest. We feel as though God is absent in our circumstance and troubles, that we are going to have to go at it alone. But God is there, present in pain, present in trouble, and present in the storms of life. He might be silent, but he is there.
The sufficiency of Christ
The key to contentment for Paul was not Gnosticism, as if it came through secret knowledge, nor was it stoic self-sufficiency. Rather, the key to contentment was Christ-sufficiency in all circumstances. We might not always feel this way, but there is no such thing as an incomplete or deficient Christian. Christ’s divine power has granted all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).
At the moment of salvation, we got all we need. Yes, we mature and grow, but no resource is missing for us as we travel the road to spiritual maturity. There is no need to search for something more because it doesn’t exist. Christ is sufficient. But I think this is hard for us to accept, not in theory, but in practice. We know Christ is sufficient, but live as though we are self-sufficient.
The one thing the self-sufficient person can never do is receive. We must open the clenched fists of self-sufficiency and receive Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel.
Why? Because everything we need is found in him.
Rev. Mike Hernandez serves as the senior pastor of Crossroads Presbyterian Church. He is a graduate of Trinity International University (B.A.), Knox Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando. He has written for Gospel-Centered Discipleship and is a member of the National Association of Scholars.
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