Contentment: Paul’s Secret to Facing Any Situation
True Christian contentment, being dependent on God and thus independent of circumstances, is achievable for any Christian in any situation. It is not freedom from desire or ignorance of circumstances, but is instead an inner peace empowered by Christ with the foundation of trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God. Therefore, we must strive for true Christian contentment.
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.
–Philippians 4:11-13, ESV
What is the secret to facing any situation in life? In ancient times, philosophers would try to find it through reason and contemplation, while others would go on pilgrimages to consult with oracles in order to find it. We could even consider Ecclesiastes to be Solomon’s search for this secret. But the Apostle Paul stated with confidence that he had found it (Philippians 4:11-13). Then, with little elaboration, he simply moves on from the topic. He says that he learned how to be content in any situation (verse 11), whether he had much or little (verse 12). That is astounding for a man who was often beaten and imprisoned, stoned and left for dead once, shipwrecked multiple times, often hungry and thirsty, and almost constantly in danger from all manner of threats, even describing himself as ever near death (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). How could he be content in all of that? To understand how Paul could be content in such hardship, we need to understand what contentment really means. If we can truly grasp Christian contentment and then achieve it, we like Paul will be able to face any situation. In doing so, we will find that true contentment is a rare treasure for which all Christians should stive.
What Contentment Is and Isn’t
What does it mean to be content? The Greek term Paul uses for contentment was borrowed from Greek philosophers who used it to denote complete self-sufficiency. They thought that if someone had all he needed and relied on no one else, he would be content. However, the Christian is not to be self-sufficient but completely dependent on God. That is the definition of faith. True saving faith goes beyond mere intellectual ascent (see James 2:14-26) and instead places complete trust in Christ such that if He does not uphold His promises, we are doomed to eternal ruin (see Romans 4 and Hebrews 11). Thus, faith is completely dependent on God and not on ourselves. Therefore, contentment to a Christian cannot be a worldly self-sufficiency that is dependent on no one else. Some may think contentment means to be free of want or desire. However, this cannot be the case since God Himself is perfectly self-sufficient and thus perfectly content yet is referred to throughout Scripture as having various (and often intense) desires (eg. Hosea 6:6, Matthew 9:13, John 17:24). Therefore, desires and contentment must be able to coexist. Paul exhibits this by relaying his own intense desires (eg. Romans 10:1, 1 Thessalonians 2:17, 1 Timothy 2:8). Earlier in the same letter, Paul shares his intense yearning for fellowship with the saints (Philippians 1:8). He also shares his desire to be finished with his work on earth and go to heaven to be with Christ (Philippians 1:23). He also talks of striving hard towards a goal (Philippians 3:12-14), but all the while he constantly speaks in the letter about his joy and rejoicing. Paul uses similar language throughout 2 Corinthians as well. This means that desires are not incompatible with true contentment.
So what is contentment for the Christian? Perhaps Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs defined it best in 1648 in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. This is a wonderful book that I would recommend to every Christian. All of my references to Burroughs throughout this post are from that book. Here is how Burroughs defines contentment: “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition”.[1] First, it is important to note that Christian contentment is an inward disposition that is independent of external circumstances. Second, this type of contentment is a gracious gift of God that is impossible to achieve without God granting it to us, which I will explain a bit later. Finally, contentment comes from both submitting to God’s Will and delighting in it, not only because He is the sovereign King over all creation but also because He is a loving Father who always does what is ultimately best for His children. This means that this type of contentment looks beyond self and ultimately relies on God, inextricably linking it to both faith and humility. This is the mysterious contentment that Paul both discovered and displayed. Burroughs goes on to point out that this type of contentment does not exclude complaining to God amidst difficult situations even as we trust His sovereignty and goodness in them (as is often seen in the Psalms). He also points out that being content does not preclude the Christian from seeking ways out of present circumstances or seeking legal recourse when appropriate. One example of this is when Paul used the privileges of his Roman citizenship to avoid a beating (Acts 22). The key here is that no matter what action we take in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, inner peace that trusts in both the sovereignty and goodness of God is the mark of true Christian contentment. In Philippians, Paul claims to have that contentment.
I Can Do All Things?
The reason that Paul gives is one of the most well-known and misused verses in the entire Bible: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). It is often used by Christians facing any number of challenging situations as a rallying cry to overcome them. But that is not at all what Paul is saying, so this has led to a common satirical paraphrase among Reformed Christians: “I can do all things through a verse taken out of context”. To understand what Paul means, we need to do what we must do with every verse in Scripture: read it in its proper context (as I discussed in an earlier post on how to properly study the Bible). In contrast to most of Paul’s letters, Philippians is overwhelmingly positive. I have already noted how “joy” and “rejoice” appear frequently throughout the letter. This is mainly because Paul was not writing this letter to correct a particular issue in the church (like 1 Corinthians or Galatians) or to instruct people in the Gospel (like Romans or Ephesians). Instead, Philippians is a thank you note. When Paul was a prisoner in Rome and in need of provisions, the Philippian church donated to meet his need, sending Epaphroditus to Rome with their gift. Paul wrote Philippians in response, thanking them for their gift and encouraging them both about his own welfare and what their gift demonstrated about their progress in godliness. He explains how his imprisonment had actually served to advance the Gospel (1:12-18). Later, he gives a glorious description of the humility and subsequent exaltation of Jesus amidst exhortations for the Philippians to follow Christ’s example of humility in hope of future exaltation (2:1-18). He doesn’t get around to thanking them for their gift until halfway through the last chapter, first rejoicing in how the Philippians’ gift demonstrated their concern for him (4:10), while reminding them that regardless of whether they had given it to him he would have been content because of the strength Christ provides (4:11-13). He then recognizes their pattern of generosity toward him (4:14-15), emphasizing how their gift is a sacrifice to God and that God will supply all of their needs too (4:17-19) before ending the letter with a benediction (4:20) and final greetings (4:21-23). Therefore, the context of Philippians 4:13 is all about Paul’s situation of need that was then abundantly met by the gift of the Philippians. It has nothing to do with being able to overcome any challenge, but instead has everything to do with the ability to face any situation with the strength that Christ provides. This is an important distinction. Paul is not talking about overcoming all situations he faces, but being content in all situations he faces. Therefore, Paul is talking about how Christ has empowered him to be content, so therein we can find the way that we too can be content as Paul was.
How Christ Strengthens Us to be Content
The promise of Philippians 4:13 is that Christ will empower us to be content in any circumstance, not that He will empower us to overcome any circumstance. He does this in several ways.
God’s Sovereignty Over All
First, He empowers us to be content through His sovereignty. Jesus Christ rules the entire universe (Matthew 28:18) so comprehensively that not one subatomic particle can defy Him, since it is only by His power that they even exist (Hebrews 1:3). Humans and demons can sin against Him, but even that sin cannot prevent Him from fulfilling His purpose (see Romans 9 and Job). As the second person of the Trinity, He possesses all of the attributes of God, including omniscience (knowing everything) and omnipotence (having power over everything). And having power over everything, He perfectly orchestrates everything to advance His purpose, which is known as His Providence. The sovereignty of God is an invincible fortress. All those in Christ are in that fortress and can therefore say with the psalmists “what can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:4,11, 118:6). Therefore, Christian contentment begins by resting in the sovereignty of God over all things.
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How do Christians Approach the Law?
If the ceremonial and civil/judicial laws are no longer binding, why are there so many in Scripture? Paul makes clear that the entire Old Testament was written for our benefit (Romans 15:4). In truth, these laws are useful to Christians because there are uses of the law other than obedience. The Law restrains sin and promotes righteousness, brings about conviction of sin by showing us we cannot meet its requirements, and informs the way Christians are to live.[3] This means that when we read the ceremonial and civil laws, we must see them as more than laws. The entirety of the Law exists to teach us who God is and who we are as well as point us to Christ.
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?
-Deuteronomy 10:12-13, ESVBut as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
-2 Timothy 3:14-17, ESVRecently, I read through the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) in my morning quiet times. This is the part of the Bible where reading plans often die. While there are many fascinating stories throughout Genesis and the first half of Exodus, the majority of the rest of the Pentateuch lays out the Mosaic Law. Following the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, the rest of Exodus contains various laws that begin to establish the Jewish religious and civil code along with very specific instructions on how the Tabernacle and everything in it is to be made. Leviticus then lays out the rest of the Jewish religious law. Numbers gives the rest of the Jewish legal code amid various stories of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land. Deuteronomy retells the Law to a new generation as they prepare for their conquest of the land. If we are honest, we must admit that these laws can get a little bit tedious and not a little bit uncomfortable, leading us to all but avoid them. Even if we don’t avoid them, what do we do with them?
Of the numerous laws found in the Pentateuch, there are many that even the most devout Christians do not follow. We eat bacon, wear blended fabrics, and lend money at interest. We don’t observe the Passover, execute rebellious children, or sacrifice animals. Yet we will point to parts of the Mosaic Law to argue against abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, extramarital sex, and various other topics, as I did in a previous post. Are we arbitrarily picking and choosing which parts of the God’s Law we follow, as is so often charged against us?
The Types of Laws
Clearly, there are some Old Testament laws that we follow and others that we do not. But we are by no means arbitrary in how we determine which laws to follow. Many Christians use the New Testament as the standard for identifying which laws are still binding. They hold that if an Old Testament law is repeated in the New Testament, that means that it is still binding, while the laws that are not repeated are not binding on Christians. While it is certainly true that the laws repeated in the New Testament are still binding, we cannot immediately conclude that a law is not binding just because it is not repeated in the New Testament. Instead, we identify which laws are still binding by which type of laws we are dealing with. As I discussed in a previous post, there are three types of laws: moral, ceremonial, and civil/judicial. [1]
Moral laws are rooted in God’s unchanging nature and are thus binding on all people worldwide and across all of time. All of the Ten Commandments are part of the moral law, as well as commands accompanied by statements like “I am the LORD” or that reference the prohibited activity as an abomination. These moral laws are often not only repeated in the New Testament but actually expanded. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus extends the prohibition against murder to include hate and adultery to include lust, thus making the standard to which Christians are held even more stringent than the Mosaic Law. This means that even some things that were allowed under the Mosaic Law are not allowed for Christians (more on that later). Regardless, any moral law is still in effect regardless of whether it is repeated in the New Testament or not. Therefore, prohibitions against abortion (a form of murder), homosexuality, extramarital sex, and identifying as a gender clearly inconsistent with biology are part of the moral law and therefore just as binding on Christians today as they were on Jews over three thousands of years ago.
The ceremonial laws deal with the sacrifices, festivals, rituals, and cleanliness standards of the Jewish religion. In addition to sacrifices and festivals, the restrictions on diet and clothing material are part of the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law pointed to Christ and was thus fulfilled completely by His life, death, and resurrection such as to make them no longer binding on Christians. Large sections of Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians as well as almost the entirety of Galatians and Hebrews are devoted to how Christ has fulfilled the ceremonial law: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4). As discussed in the last post, Jesus explicitly did away with both the dietary laws (Mark 7:19) and the separation between Jews and Gentiles (Matthew 28:19, Acts 10:28) that were major topics in the ceremonial law. When Jesus died, the veil of the Temple was torn, signifying that the separation between God and His people had been removed by Christ’s perfect atonement, therefore eliminating the need for further sacrifices. The Temple was ultimately destroyed in 70 A.D. in large part to show that the ceremonial law had been completely fulfilled by Christ and thus replaced by Him as the mediator between God and man.
Finally, civil laws apply the moral law to the specific context of theocratic Israel, so those specific laws have not been binding since Israel ceased to be a theocratic nation, even while the moral laws that undergird them are just as binding today as they were then. The regulations on slavery, execution of rebellious children, and prohibition of charging interest (along with most of the other laws that we find uncomfortable) are all civil laws that are not binding on Christians. These were specific to the context of ancient Israel and must be viewed with that context in mind. Therefore, if Christians were to come to power in any nation today (much as the Puritans did for a short time in Mid-Seventeenth Century England), it would be improper for them to use the civil laws of the Mosaic Law as the law of the land. Instead, they would be wise to examine how the civil laws of Israel applied the moral laws to Israel’s specific context and use that to inform how they might apply the moral laws to their own context. Therefore, Christians are selective in obeying Old Testament laws, but not arbitrarily selective. We follow moral laws (which are still applicable to everyone), do not follow ceremonial laws (which were completely fulfilled in Christ), and use the civil laws as an example of how to apply the moral laws to our specific context.
What of Difficult Laws?
Even if they are no longer binding, some of the civil laws have a tendency to make modern Western readers quite uncomfortable. From our modern perspective, laws allowing slavery, forced marriage, and execution of rebellious children while banning interracial marriage certainly seem cruel and oppressive. This can lead us to question why a loving God would include them in His Law. While it is impossible to fully know God’s reasoning for including such laws in Scripture—since the secret things belong to God (Deuteronomy 29:29)—there is still much that we can glean from Scripture to help us understand them. These laws are difficult to understand, so it would be tempting to simply ignore them, but they are important to consider since these laws are often used by opponents of Christianity to make both the Bible and its divine Author seem cruel and oppressive. This should not be surprising, as David says:With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.
-Psalms 18:25-27, ESVnonePeter would later say that wicked and unstable people twist such difficult passages to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). For them, these laws are convenient evidence with which to undermine the authority of Scripture and charge God with being cruel and vindictive. More concerning is that these laws can cause genuine Christians to doubt the goodness of God. To address this, we must view these laws in their original context. When we do, even people with no expertise in ancient legal codes (like me) can see that these laws are not cruel and oppressive. Let’s look briefly at a few of them:
Slavery: The form of slavery allowed in the Mosaic Law is very different from the form of slavery practiced in the Americas. It was heavily regulated, temporary, and ultimately a form of welfare (Exodus 21:1-27, Leviticus 25:39-40). In fact, the slavery practiced in the Americas would have been slave trading, which was a capital offense in the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 24:7).
Executing Rebellious Sons: While we would consider it extreme to execute a rebellious child, we must remember that the ancient Near East had a much higher regard for elders in general and parents in particular than we do (to our detriment). The Mosaic Law regarding rebellious sons in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 actually preserved the rights and dignity of the son by requiring parents to first exhaust all other forms of discipline and that the magistrates would have the final say whether execution was appropriate.
Interracial Marriage: It is clear from context that the laws seeming to prohibit interracial marriage are not against mixing ethnicities but religions (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).
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Breaking: SBC Decisively Approves Law Amendment, Restores Male-Only Pastorship
The amendment’s necessity was reinforced by a recent study from Kevin McClure exposing that nearly 2,000 women in the SBC were serving in pastoral roles, explicitly defying the SBC’s biblical tradition and stated constitutional principles. His study found that 1,844 women were serving in pastoral roles in 1,255 SBC churches.
The Southern Baptist Convention passed an amendment that clarified the role of women/barred women from holding pastoral roles at their annual convention being held in New Orleans.
The amendment, introduced and spearheaded by Pastor Mike Law of Virginia’s Arlington Baptist Church, passed overwhelmingly with the support of approximately 80% of the SBC’s messengers by raised ballot. A subsequent motion to count a paper ballot was rejected by the messengers.
The amendment reinforces traditional Baptist teaching on the role of women in the Church, citing scripture which has informed Baptist tradition for centuries.
Southern Baptists reinforced that tradition with the SBC’s Baptist Faith & Message (2000) that reads: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
The now-passed amendment’s text is straightforward, leaving little wiggle room for potential undermining from “egalitarian” activists in the SBC.
Mike Law presented his own amendment to the floor: “I move that the Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention be amended to include an enumerated 6th item under Article 3, Paragraph 1, concerning composition. The enumerated 6th item would read: ‘6. Does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.’”
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Entrusting My Treasure
There are no guarantees in this life. At least, not the kind that keep you healthy, wealthy, and wise. We are all in His hands—father, mother, sister, brother, missionary, or local church member. And He is so trustworthy! I can magnify His worth as I entrust to His care the children He has temporarily entrusted to my care. Fellow mothers, let’s surrender our fears and ambitions for our children and let the Lord write their stories according to His perfect wisdom.
I leaned over my bleeding daughter, adrenaline pumping through my own veins as I obeyed the instructions of my nurse friend and co-worker, Heidi. My sweet 7-year-old Savannah looked up into my eyes from the tile floor beneath the ladder-like stairs and asked, “Why did God let me fall? I was getting toys for the little kids!”
Savannah will always bear the scar in her forehead from the wound that bared bone that day, and my own soul would bleed and fester over the next weeks as I grappled with her question that cut deeply into my mother-heart. It was a wound that would eventually heal but leave its mark on me.
Our Stewardship
Our gracious Father had given three beautiful children to Forrest and me to shepherd and steward, and we had gladly accepted the responsibility. The Lord also made it clear that we would be raising them in a rural province of Cambodia, known among the developing world for its rugged poverty. Our response was always a resounding “God will take care of us!” But what did that mean now? My pain cried out, God, we have given up so much to come here and serve the Cambodian people. Can I not trust you to keep my children safe from harm? I wanted to require God to insulate my family from hurts in exchange for our sacrifice and service. This would not do. I would wrestle with Him, even until the break of day, but He would prevail with a single touch. He is Lord.
I loved to think of how the Lord had taught me to embrace risks for His Name’s sake, tamping down my fear and stepping out, then gasping at the wonder of what He can do with just a little faith. I talk about it to others. I write about it. But the glory takes on an uncertain hue when my risk-taking affects my little ones. Can I pursue activities that promote the Gospel, knowing sickness and danger will encroach on their young lives too?
I can be a good steward as I help my children experience how to invest in eternal things, counting cost according to God’s economic system, not the world’s.
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