Philippians 4:13
Last updated 27 August 2026 · Written by the VerseMates team
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Paul wrote this in chains, and the sentence directly before it is about being hungry.
What it means
“All things” means all of those things. Both halves. The strength Paul is describing is the strength to be content at either end of the range, which is a stranger and more difficult gift than the strength to succeed.
It is a verse about endurance in circumstances you did not pick. That is why it works in a prison cell, and why it has comforted people in hospital rooms ever since.
What it does not mean
It is not a guarantee that you will win, get the offer, or hit the number. Paul had just described going without food. If the verse promised outcomes, he would be its first counter-example.
Used as a performance charm it inverts the meaning — turning a statement about contentment with little into a claim on getting a lot. The strength on offer is for the season where you do not get what you wanted.
Where it sits
The letter goes to the church at Philippi around AD 62, from prison, and its immediate occasion is a thank-you: they had sent him a gift.
Paul is careful about how he receives it. In 4:11-12 he says he has learned to be content in whatever state he is — humbled or abounding, filled or hungry, in plenty or in need. Verse 13 is the conclusion of that sentence, not the start of a new one.
Read it when…
Scriptures that sit alongside it
“He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul again, on power that works through weakness rather than around it. Read more.
“Those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.”
Strength renewed for those who wait — walking as well as soaring. Read more.
“The testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
What endurance is actually for. Read more.
Christ, I want the version where I win. Teach me the other strength — the one that holds when I am full and when I am empty, and does not need the result to go my way to keep loving you. Amen.
This verse turns up in the verse of the day rotation, and sits in the wider collection of Bible verses about encouragement.