Philippians 4:13
I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me.
the face of I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me.
Paul says that being content either with plenty or with lack (Philippians 4:12) was not due to his willpower, but to God strengthening him.
We can understand the importance of contentment in the face of lack, but what about in the face of plenty?
How does contentment help in the time of plenty?
It means we would not unnecessarily expand our consumption with plenty, but would be able to share.
And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by how you use worldly wealth, so that when it runs out, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes. (Luke 16:9)
A way to be friendly is through generosity, said Jesus in that verse.
I think the need to be content in plenty is an overlooked area of spiritual virtue.
We may be quick to tell the needy to be content, but what about the rich, those who have plenty?
They also need contentment, according to Paul. Have we grown to expect excesses from the rich? Why? Because they can afford it?
Let's see James indicted of the rich in James 5:1-5 as a window to the need for contentment even for the rich.
Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are coming on you. Your riches have rotted and your clothing has become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have hoarded treasure! Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person, although he does not resist you. (James 5:1-5)
Clearly, the rich here lacked contentment, and James mentioned living “indulgently and luxuriously" on the backs of unpaid workers' wages. James is on the side of the field workers in this diatribe against the rich.
Many of us would bristle at James' words because we have been told that riches should be our aspiration. But that is not the stance of the scriptures. Of course, God gives wealth, but that is not the point. The point is that when it becomes aspirational, contentment may be out the window. And whatever we have in the James passage may begin to apply, where the welfare of others stops being a priority, but something else is.
James is calling out to live indulgently and luxuriously on the back of unpaid wages.
I am not writing in defense of societal-wide socialism. There is nothing here indicating that the rich must stop being rich. Nothing. The question is not about how the wealth was acquired, but rather: once it was acquired, do we use it to intimidate and subjugate others?
Also note that James did not say Christians should take the law into their own hands because they hold grudges against the rich or lust after the wealth of the wealthy.
And then there is the hoarding of treasure in the last days, showing you there is no consciousness of the second return of Christ.
For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what can a person give in exchange for his life? (Matthew 16:26)
Jesus said those words in Matthew after telling people to take up their cross and follow Him. But that is the last thing on the mind of the rich in that same passage. In another place, he hinted that being rich does not confer spiritual insight (James 2:5-7).
Back to the point about living luxuriously and indulgently.
Because someone can afford it does not mean they should do it? Not necessarily?
We need to be careful not to be driven by competition, which is akin to what John called the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the arrogance produced by material possessions (1 John 2:15-17).
Contentment means neither plenty nor lack defines you.
It means 'plenty' does not mean you are so excited that you were almost hit by a car on the way to getting a surprise infusion of cash, or that you drink yourself into a stupor (indulgent).
Or you want to immediately broadcast to everyone that you have arrived, because there is an attempt to use the money, good for meeting physical needs, to meet inner needs or the need to prove yourself, rather than having rest in Christ (Matthew 11:28).
Because of this challenge of contentment, someone in the book of Proverbs wrote these words:
Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
do not give me poverty or riches;
feed me with my allotted portion of bread,
lest I become satisfied and act deceptively
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I become poor and steal
and demean the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:8-9)
While I am not encouraging people to pray this prayer of Argur, we need to recognize that the scripture is getting to a matter of the heart.
It says there is danger for both poverty and riches (which are relative terms). The danger of a lack seems obvious to us. The writer mentioned stealing because of a lack.
Paul addressed that situation.
The one who steals must steal no longer; instead, he must labor, doing good with his own hands, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. (Ephesians 4:28)
Paul recognized that people might steal because they lack, but the solution is not more stealing, but working with their own hands. Not for the purpose of being better than our neighbors, but so that we would stop being takers, but givers under God.
But Agur also mentioned that people can derive satisfaction from wealth and then think that purity is not so important, adopt deceptive or, maybe, sophisticatedly deceptive business practices to maintain or increase wealth.
Maybe the rich wants to hold on to their riches, increase them, and use immoral means to do so.
James says to the rich
- You have hoarded treasure
- You have held back pay from the workers who mowed
- You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth
- You have condemned and murdered the righteous person who does not resist
He is saying that riches can confer power that can be abused, as well as the ability to use or manipulate the system to your favor.
The point is that there is a thing about contentment even for the rich. For example, the will of God should be central, whether for the rich or the poor.
But you have dishonored the poor! Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme the good name of the one you belong to? (James 2:6-7)
When we combine the two James passages, we see an elevation in the status of the poor, which may leave them socially disadvantaged. Not by trying to change their status, as if there is something wrong with it, but by telling them that God does not see them the way man does, which should bring contentment.
And the rich should realize that God sees beyond the material, to have the proper estimation of what is valuable before God.
Jesus said a church which was poor according to the world, was truly rich (Revelation 2:9). He also said a church that was rich according to the world, was truly poor (Revelation 3:17). Both groups should not have their identity in material things or in the lack of them, but in Christ.
So Paul said, I am able to do all things, through the one who strengthens me.
