The Secret of Contentment

The final chapter of Philippians is full of small, real things. Two women, Euodia and Syntyche, need to be reconciled, and Paul asks a trusted colleague to help them. The church is told to rejoice, to be gentle, to stop worrying, to think about whatever is true and noble and right and pure. Then Paul gets to the reason for the letter, which is the gift the Philippians sent him through Epaphroditus.

His thank-you is unusual. He rejoices greatly that they have renewed their concern for him. Then he immediately adds that he is not saying this because he is in need. He has learned to be content whatever the circumstances. He knows what it is to have plenty and to be in want, to be well fed and to go hungry. He has learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, and then he says the sentence people quote on their own: I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Read in context, that verse is not about accomplishing great things. It is about enduring hunger without losing joy, and enjoying plenty without becoming dependent on it. The all this is the full range of circumstances Paul has just listed. The strength is for contentment.

The one idea is that contentment is learned, and it is learned in both directions. Most of us assume the hard lesson is going without. Paul says plenty is also a lesson. Being well fed can make a person forget the one who feeds him as surely as hunger can make him doubt. Paul has been trained in both, and the training happened in Christ, whose strength is sufficient for either.

The turn toward life is to identify which lesson you are in. If you are in want, the promise is that God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. If you are in plenty, the warning is that plenty is its own test. Either way, the aim is the same: to be able to receive a gift with gratitude and to be able to do without it with peace. That is what Paul means by the secret. He learned it, which means it can be learned.