Contentment In An Abundant Circumstance

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. Philippians 4:11

Want to state an unpopular thought this morning? Say that Paul had learned to be content in abundant food by eating everything in sight. Verbal torches would be lit and doctrinal pitchforks sharpened before the writer could get out of his house and make his escape to the hills of our Lord's pasture. The context of our verse for today does not support this position, and I agree that Paul would likely not have learned to be content in gluttony. The apostle, like his brothers and sisters in Christ, probably enjoyed a good feast with gratitude to God and his hosts. That Paul had to learn to be content in a state of abundance does speak to the apostle running into some times of discontent with a similar circumstance. In reading the scriptures, we are not always content to learn that our heroes of the faith had to learn anything at all. It is a strange discontent on our part since Paul the writer of that same verse was one of the more extreme examples of our Lord turning a person down an opposite path in life. We may be guilty at times of thinking that Paul became an instant paragon of Christ-like virtue on the dust of the road to Damascus one morning. And then that same Paul goes and writes to us of having learned to be content. Could it be that the Bible is not a, go diet, work fitness, stay healthy, save yourself, and get rich in 40 days and nights sort of book?

Learning here to be content in where Christ Jesus has me now,

Bucky