I can do all things through a verse taken out of context
We see them everywhere – those bumper stickers with some pithy biblical one-liner. And not just bumper stickers these days – in a lot of ways, tattoos have become the new bumper sticker. People are fond of an easy to absorb message, either as their proclamation of choice or their touchstone of choice.
Please don’t hear me dismissing these forms of expression. I have had bumper stickers in times gone by and I have tattoos.
I am really careful about making sure that they mean something timeless to me, both on my body and on my car.
AND the key there is making sure of meaning.
Sometimes people turn to the scripture only to find the pithy sound bite that fits their need for a meaning – they go looking for the words they need. They read what they want to hear or what they need to hear into the text. We call that proof-texting. We make our own meaning of the words, which most often doesn’t reflect the author’s intended meaning, which is rooted in their experience and their relationship to God.
Sometimes I think childhood vacation bible school imprinted us with the proof texting habit – the daily memory verse (at least when I was young) didn’t often include much thoughtful teaching about where it came from, what was going on around those words, and therefore the fullness of the message.
As adults now in our sound bite culture, we might be tempted to take a few words out of their context and run with them. We read into them the meaning we want or need, and as others receive them on our bumper sticker, our bodies or our athletic wear out of context, those others don’t see get the full meaning either.
And I think we’ve heard Janice say on more than one occasion that a text without context is just a con….
When we are at our very best as Jesus-followers, we read and study. Disciples are learners, remember. We pursue understanding. As good Methodists formed by the Wesley brother’s “methods,” we seek to ground ourselves in scripture by bringing our tradition, our rational brains and our lived experience of God with us as we read and try to understand.
So we begin today with a letter from Paul. If you have been around a while, you know that I have some feelings about Paul – and in truth my feelings about Paul are rooted in how crazy-complicated his writing is. One really has to READ and wrestle with all that Paul is saying across an entire letter to draw meaning from a specific part of the text.
Today’s text from Philippians gives rise to lots of bumper stickers and a slew of merchandise that read: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” or just the shorthand Phil 4: 13 – as if a bunch of folks know exactly what that is when they see it on your car or your body.
Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi was probably written sometime in the early 60s CE. You might remember from last week that the letters written by Paul to various early church communities predate the gospels. These letters were personal and specific – meaning they were to a community and addressed specific things happening in that community and at that time. They were rooted in a time, place and set of circumstances.
And it is fair to say that thought processes, principles and counsel that fit a specific situation also may have value in other situations – thus these letters made it into the canon – the various parts and pieces that came together to make up the bible we read today.
That is the spirit with which we approach Paul’s writing. In his letters, he is actively working things out – he is doing theology, wrestling with who Jesus was, who Christ is and who God is in light of lived experience and the tradition that shaped Judaism and the earliest Christian communities in the first century.
The whole letter to the church at Philippi describes some of Paul’s recent difficult circumstances and addresses the financial gift the community has given in support of Paul.
He also describes his disappointment in some of the missionaries he’s been imprisoned with. He judges their motives to be slippery. He warns the Philippians about the possibility of false teachers showing up who might lead the community astray – imagine in that time how easy it might be for opportunists to show up claiming a relationship to Paul, gently tweaking the messages he’s shared and leaning on the communities for material support. There is no instant fact checking, only word of mouth from place to place.
Today’s reading begins with “therefore”…so there must be something prior that matters for understanding the fullness of this text.
In the prior verses, Paul has written about pressing toward the greater promise of life in Christ:
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
So he is referencing the circumstances and the example set in the broader text of the letter – all the risks, all the hardships, all the uncertainty.
Essentially, as he wraps up his letter, he’s saying “In light of persecution, in light of opportunists, in light of what we are still figuring out, stand firm. In all of this, stand firm in the Lord.”
And that is significant to how we see the line “I can do all things through him who strengthens me…”
Sort of.
I want to role back to the translation of the Greek in that particular verse. The rendering from the Greek is more like: For all things, I have strength in the one strengthening me…
And that, to me, makes it even easier to get to the significance of that verse as a touchstone in our lives.
I think sometimes we get caught up in the “do” as in…
“I can DO all things…”
But when I hear that Greek rendering – For all things, I have strength in the one strengthening me….
Suddenly it is about how God is with me as a source of strength for all that I will encounter.
For all that I will endure.
For all that I will trip over.
For all that I will botch.
I have strength in the one strengthening me.
Make no mistake, this is a powerful verse…one with the power to center us in our discipleship.
And I think it is make all the more powerful for spending the time to fully understand.
If this verse speaks to you, what is your testimony about it? How would you explain its power to someone else?
My prayer is that is our work in these coming weeks as we dive a little deeper on the lines of scripture we see sprinkled in popular culture. My prayer is that we use our brains, our hearts, our lives to dig deeper and see what word is there for us.
May it be so.
Amen.
Let’s spend a few moments in silence listening with our hearts, taking in the way the Holy Spirit is moving for us in this moment.
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