Philippians 4:13
Ten words, and probably the most-quoted verse in English-language sport: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Read verse 12 first and it turns into something else entirely — a man explaining how he has learned to cope with being hungry. Below is the verse in both translations, then the passage it belongs to.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.Philippians 4:13 · World English Bible
Philippians 4:13 in the King James Version
The 1611 wording — I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me — is the one on the gym walls and the eye black. Public domain, so quote it anywhere.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.Philippians 4:13 · King James Version
Line by line
Philippians 4:11
Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learnt in whatever state I am, to be content in it.
The sentence starts by ruling out the obvious reading. Paul says he is not speaking out of need — he has learned contentment in whatever state he is in. The subject is contentment, and it is introduced two verses before the famous line.
Philippians 4:12
I know how to be humbled, and I also know how to abound. In any and all circumstances I have learnt the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.
The verse that changes everything. To be filled and to be hungry, to abound and to be in need. Whatever "all things" means in verse 13, this is the list it refers back to, and half of it is deprivation.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
So: all things means all of that. Being full and being hungry. Having plenty and having nothing. It is a claim about enduring both ends, not about clearing any bar you set yourself.
Philippians 4:14
However you did well that you shared in my affliction.
And immediately after, a thank-you: they did well to share in his affliction. The whole passage is a letter thanking a church for sending money to a man in prison.
What the passage is actually doing
Philippians is a thank-you letter. Paul is writing from custody to a church that had sent him financial help, and this is the section where he acknowledges it — carefully, because he does not want them thinking he wrote only because he was desperate.
So verse 11 opens by heading that off: not that I speak because of lack. Verse 12 explains why — he has been at both ends and learned to manage either. Verse 13 is the summary of that ability. Verse 14 thanks them anyway.
Read in one go it is a passage about equanimity under circumstances you did not choose. Read as a standalone line it becomes a promise of capability, which is very nearly the opposite.
Why the misreading is so easy
Mostly the King James phrasing. I can do all things sounds in modern English like a claim about capability — I am able to accomplish anything. In the passage it is closer to I can cope with anything, and the modern rendering above keeps the same words while the context does the correcting.
It is the same failure that turns Jeremiah 29:11 into a promise of imminent good news. A verse gets separated from its paragraph, and the shorter version promises more than the longer one ever did.
One word that is not in every manuscript
Both translations on this page say through Christ who strengthens me. The Greek editions do not agree with each other about that word.
The critical editions — Westcott and Hort, Nestle, the SBL Greek New Testament — print en to endynamounti me and stop there: through him who strengthens me. The Byzantine Majority Text, the Greek Orthodox text and both Textus Receptus editions add Christo. You can see the editions set out side by side at BibleHub, with the interlinear alongside.
This is the manuscript kind of difference, not the translation kind, and the distinction is worth keeping straight. A translation difference is two English choices about one settled original. This is the original itself being unsettled.
And here is the honest part. Most of the time the two translations on these pages let you see a disagreement instead of taking our word for it. Not here: ours both descend from the same side of this split, so both print “Christ”, and you would never know from reading them that there was anything to know. The instrument has a limit and this verse is sitting on it.
What the variant actually changes is very little. Without the word, the sentence is through him who strengthens me, and the him is Christ anyway — he is named four times in the surrounding paragraph. Which is itself the useful thing to take away: textual variants are real, documented and mostly undramatic. This is what one normally looks like.
Does that make it a worse verse?
No — a much better one, and considerably more use. A promise that you will achieve what you set out to achieve is not one anybody can keep. A claim that you can be sustained through both plenty and hunger is the kind of thing you would want on a bad day, and it comes from someone writing it from prison rather than from a podium.
If you came here for the gym-wall version, the honest version is the one that survives the week the gym-wall version fails you. More along those lines on verses for strength, which includes the passage where Paul asks three times for something to be taken away and is told no.
When it gets read
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Sport and competition
By far the most common use, and the one furthest from the text. Nothing wrong with taking courage from it — just worth knowing it was written by a prisoner about going without food.
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Tattoos
One of the three most-tattooed verses in English. If it is going on your body permanently, verse 12 is the one worth reading first. See verses for tattoos.
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Illness, redundancy, going without
The situation the passage was actually written into. It speaks to being sustained through a thing rather than delivered from it — see also verses about money worries and verses for healing.
Where you've heard it
It is the sports verse. Written on boots, eye black, tape and arms across American football, basketball and boxing, and on a great many gym walls.
The best-known example is often misremembered, so it is worth getting right. Tim Tebow did wear Philippians 4:13 on his eye black — it was his choice through the 2008 college football season, picked, in his account, because it seemed like a good verse for a footballer. But for the BCS Championship game on 8 January 2009 he switched to John 3:16, and that is the one that became famous: roughly 94 million people searched for it during and after the game.
So Philippians 4:13 is the verse he wore for a season and John 3:16 is the verse everyone remembers. Both get attributed to the championship game; only one belongs there.
There is a small irony in the pairing. The verse he chose as the one for an athlete is, read properly, about coping with going without — and he swapped it, before the biggest game of his career, for one that is not about him at all.
What this looks like on a phone
Push From God sends a passage when it fits what you've told it about your week — not on a schedule you have to keep up with.
For the last week of this
I know how to be humbled, and I also know how to abound. In any and all circumstances I have learnt the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.
Philippians 4:12
You said it's been lean. This is the verse under the famous one — it names being hungry.
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Questions
What does Philippians 4:13 mean?
In context it is a statement about endurance rather than achievement. Verse 12 sets it up: Paul says he has learned the secret of being filled and being hungry, of abounding and being in need. 'All things' in verse 13 refers back to that list, so the claim is that he can be sustained through both extremes — not that he can accomplish anything he attempts.
Who wrote Philippians 4:13 and why?
Paul, writing from imprisonment to the church at Philippi, in a letter thanking them for sending financial support. Verse 11 explicitly says he is not writing out of need, and verse 14 thanks them for sharing in his affliction. The famous line sits in the middle of a thank-you note.
Is it wrong to use Philippians 4:13 for sport or motivation?
Not wrong, but it is not what the passage is about. The verse concerns contentment and endurance in circumstances outside your control, which is closer to getting through a hard season than to winning. Many people find the fuller reading more useful, not less.
What is Philippians 4:13 in the King James Version?
'I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.' That is the phrasing most people know. It is in the public domain, so it can be reproduced anywhere without permission.