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Does Philippians 4:13 Apply to Athletic Performance and Personal Achievement?

about 1 min read

Philippians 4:13

The situation

You're preparing for a big game and someone quotes this at you. Or you've written it on the inside of a baseball cap, painted it under your eyes before a fight, tattooed it on your forearm before a competition. Tim Tebow wore it in Bible references during NFL games. It appears in graduation speeches, locker-room pep talks, motivational posters. The popular use treats Philippians 4:13 as a guarantee — that with Christ's strength, you can achieve any goal you set out to accomplish. The verse is taken to be about capacity, performance, victory.

What the text actually says

Philippians 4:13 — BSB

I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:13 — KJV

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Original language

Greek ischyō (ἰσχύω) — BDAG s.v. ischyō: to be strong, to be able, to have strength to endure. The verb describes capacity for endurance and bearing, not the guaranteed delivery of an outcome. Paul uses ischyō across his letters for being able to withstand, to bear up under, to remain — not for achieving a particular result. The 'all things' (panta) refers to the range of circumstances Paul has just enumerated in 4:11-12 (plenty and want, well-fed and hungry), not the range of human achievements.

Where the application holds

Where the application stretches

A note on context

Paul writes this passage from prison (Philippians 1:13). He is thanking the Philippian church for a financial gift they sent and explaining how he received it. The whole passage (4:10–13) is a careful pastoral statement: he is grateful, he was not in desperate need, he has learned to be content whether circumstances are good or bad. The “secret” (memuēmai, “I have been initiated, I have learned”) that 4:12 names is the equanimity that does not depend on circumstance. Verse 13 is the basis: the strength for that equanimity is Christ’s, not his own.

For the wider lexical and theological discussion see /meaning/i-can-do-all-things-meaning/.

For the full textual analysis