Paul Had to Learn to Be Content
Episode 16 of the November series: Providence & Gratitude. If you've ever felt like you should be more content than you are, this one is for you. Even Paul had to LEARN contentment. He wasn't born with it — and neither are you.
Philippians 4:11-13 (KJV):
"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
"I have LEARNED."
The Greek verb is emathon — "I learned." It describes a completed learning process. Contentment, even for the apostle Paul, was not a personality trait he was born with. It was a skill he acquired over time.
That's enormously hopeful. If you are not content yet — if you're restless, anxious, always wanting the next thing — you are not broken or second-class. You are mid-education, exactly where Paul once was. Jeremiah Burroughs called his Puritan classic on this "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" because it is rare and WON, not common and given.
He learned it in the school of BOTH poverty and plenty.
Philippians 4:12: Paul learned contentment through being "abased" AND "abounding," "full" AND "hungry." Both are hard teachers.
Poverty tempts you to anxiety and grumbling. But plenty is just as dangerous — abundance tempts you to self-sufficiency and to forgetting God (Deuteronomy 8:11-18; Proverbs 30:8-9: "lest I be full, and deny thee"). Paul learned to walk through both without letting either one dethrone God.
Now the big one: the most misused verse in the Bible.
Right in the middle of this, Paul writes Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
You've seen it on sports gear, gym walls, and graduation cards. Almost always it's used to mean "with Christ's help, you can achieve anything — win the game, hit the goal, make the sale."
That is the opposite of what Paul means.
Read the context.
The "all things" Paul can do through Christ is supplied by the verses right before it: being abased and abounding, full and hungry (v. 12). The "all things" is the full range of life's CIRCUMSTANCES. Paul is saying: in every one of these states — rich or poor, full or empty — Christ strengthens me to be CONTENT.
Philippians 4:13 is not a promise that Christ will help you accomplish your ambitions. It's a promise that Christ will strengthen you to be at peace in any condition, including lack. It's not a success slogan. It's a contentment promise. In fact, Paul writes it from PRISON, and in the immediate context he's thanking the Philippians for a financial gift while insisting he had already learned to be content without it.
To turn "I can do all things through Christ" into "I can achieve anything" exactly reverses Paul's point. His point is contentment amid limitation, not the overcoming of limits.
Christ-sufficiency, not self-sufficiency.
The word for "content" in verse 11 is autarkēs — a Stoic word meaning "self-sufficient," needing nothing from outside yourself. But Paul baptizes it. His sufficiency is NOT in himself (the Stoic ideal of detachment and willpower). It's "through Christ which strengtheneth me" (v. 13). Christian contentment isn't gritting your teeth and needing nothing. It's resting in the One who is enough when your circumstances are not.
Contentment and gratitude are siblings.
Both refuse to let circumstances be the measure of life's goodness. Gratitude says, "God has given, so I give thanks." Contentment says, "God is enough, so I am at peace." They grow in the same soil — the sufficiency and goodness of God — which is why "godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Timothy 6:6).
The hope to take with you.
If you're not there yet, that's okay. Paul wasn't either, until he learned. The Teacher who taught him is willing to teach you, and the Christ who strengthened him will strengthen you. Contentment is learnable. The path is open.
Contentment is learned — and Christ is both the teacher and the strength.
This is episode 16 of the 30-day November series. Tomorrow: you've been searching for "God's will for your life"? The Bible states it in plain words.
📖 Passages: Deuteronomy 8:11-18, Psalm 23:1, 73:25-26, Proverbs 30:7-9, Ecclesiastes 5:10-20, Matthew 6:24-34, Luke 12:15-21, Philippians 4:4-13, 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 6:17-19, Hebrews 13:5-6, James 4:1-3, 1 John 2:15-17