Discover The Word

Thursday, April 23, 2009

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

IDEA: Statements seldom have unlimited meaning in life or in the Bible.

PURPOSE: To help listeners keep from giving to words more value than they should have.

Suppose you get a letter from someone back in your hometown where your parents live. The person writes, “I went to visit your mother yesterday in the hospital and everything is all right.”

What would you think that sentence meant when she says, “everything is all right”?

Words and sentences must be interpreted in the context or they say more than they are intended to say.

I. Paul writes in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

How do you respond if a teacher says, “God says, ‘all things’ – all things does not mean some things. You can take it to the bank. You have God’s word that you can do all things in His strength.”

Do you think that statement, meant to inspire you, could also endanger you?

How do you know that when Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he doesn’t mean “all things”?

II. Paul is writing about a gift that the Christians in Philippi had sent to him, and in the previous verse (Philippians 4:12), he writes, “I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”

When Paul writes “all things,” what exactly is he referring to?

Do you think this could apply to us today?

Would we be more likely to think this applies to being hungry and suffering need, or to being full and to abounding?

How might either of these be true for us?

CONCLUSION:

Sometimes we want the Bible to say what it really doesn’t say. That is both disillusioning and dangerous.