Five-minute study · Day 60 · Philippians 4
Philippians 4:13
A word worth stopping on: strengthens ἐνδυναμόω endynamoo
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You have seen this verse on coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and athletes' eye black. Read the two verses before it. Paul is talking about being hungry. He is talking about having nothing. The 'all things' he can do through Christ include going without food, going without money, and being content when every material support has been stripped away. The Greek word for 'strengthens' describes power injected from an outside source, filling him from the inside out.
Word study: strengthens
- Greek
- ἐνδυναμόω
- Pronounced
- endynamoo
- Strong's
- G1743
- Definition
- To empower, to infuse with strength, to fill with power from within. A compound of en (in, within) and dynamoo (to make strong).
Endynamoo is built from en (in, within) and dynamis (power, ability, strength). BDAG defines it as 'to cause one to be able to function.' The prefix en makes the empowerment internal. The power enters and operates from the inside. Paul does not say Christ gives him strength like handing someone a tool. He says Christ infuses him with strength, like blood carrying oxygen to a muscle.
Fee, in his commentary on Philippians, emphasizes the present tense participle (endynamounti): 'the one who is continually strengthening me.' The power supply is ongoing. Paul describes a sustained infusion, not a one-time boost.
The context is critical. Philippians 4:11-12 details what Paul has learned: how to be brought low, how to abound, how to face plenty and hunger, abundance and need. The 'all things' in verse 13 refers specifically to this list. Paul is claiming something specific: Christ's internal power enables him to endure any circumstance, including the ones that strip everything away.
Paul writes this letter from prison, likely in Rome around 61-62 AD. The man describing contentment in deprivation is chained to a Roman guard while he writes. Endynamoo is not a theory for him. The power working inside him is the reason he can write about joy from a cell.
Historical context · 61 to 62 AD
A Letter Written in Chains
Paul writes Philippians during an imprisonment, most likely in Rome (Acts 28:16-31). He is under house arrest, chained to a rotating guard from the Praetorian Guard (Philippians 1:13). He cannot leave. He does not know whether his trial will end in release or execution (1:20-23). The letter to the Philippians is one of four 'prison epistles,' and it is the most joyful letter Paul ever wrote.
Philippi was the first European city where Paul planted a church, around 49-50 AD (Acts 16). The church began with Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, and a jailer who converted after an earthquake broke Paul's chains. The Philippian church maintained a financial partnership with Paul that no other church matched. They sent gifts repeatedly (4:15-16), and the immediate occasion for this letter is a gift they sent through Epaphroditus (4:18).
Paul's statement about contentment in 4:11-13 uses the Stoic term autarkes (self-sufficient, content). Fee notes that Paul borrows the word from Greek philosophy and then subverts it. Stoic autarkeia was achieved through inner discipline, detaching oneself from external circumstances through willpower. Paul's contentment comes from an external source flowing inward: Christ's endynamoo. The self-sufficiency is not self-generated. It is Christ-generated, operating inside Paul like a power source he did not install himself.
The irony of the verse's modern use on merchandise would not be lost on Paul. The man who wrote it was describing how Christ enabled him to go hungry. The strength he celebrates is the strength to need nothing when nothing is all he has.
For reflection
Read Philippians 4:11-13 together, not just verse 13 alone. Paul learned contentment in poverty and in plenty. Which side is harder for you: being content when you have little, or being content when you have enough? Endynamoo works in both directions. Where do you need Christ's internal power supply right now, and what is the specific circumstance it needs to address?
Paul uses the past tense: 'I have learned.' Contentment was a curriculum, not a personality trait. He was taught through experience.
Sources: BDAG Lexicon; Fee, 'Paul's Letter to the Philippians' (NICNT); Bockmuehl, 'The Epistle to the Philippians' (Black's NT)