All Things Seen & Unseen

'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' (Phil. 4.13).   All sorts of nonsense unfortunately have been inferred from these words of the apostle Paul in Philippians. One bit of silliness is the preaching that every saint of God 'can do all things they wish to do' in Christ.  I suspect that th is teaching comes from the 'health and wealth' theological quarter but wherever it comes from, that type of m otivational preaching that seeks to use this verse to encourage God's people to 'reach for the star s ' and 'fly like eag les', etc. is unsound.

I don't know how many times I've seen 1Cor 2.9 misused to mean something it doesn't signify.* The text says, 'But as it is written:  "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him" ' (NKJV). This seems to be a composite quote or allusion to Isaiah 64.4; 65.17; 52.15 (as we have no direct OT quote according to Robertson . It may also be that Paul alludes to the rendering of the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek.)  Verse 9 is often quoted with the speaker finishing at the end of verse 9. The problem with this 'ending' is that it gives us a reading that distorts verse 9 because both the larger and immediate contexts are ignored.