I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
The man who wrote this had every reason not to be content. He wrote it from prison, having been shipwrecked, beaten, and abandoned by people he trusted. And yet he calls contentment a secret he learned — not something he was simply born with, but something acquired the hard way, through both plenty and genuine need.
That word "learned" matters. It means this wasn't natural for him either. It means whatever peace he found wasn't dependent on his circumstances actually improving — he says outright he knew both sides, fullness and hunger, and found some kind of steadiness in both.
Most people assume contentment is a personality trait, something you either have or don't. This verse suggests otherwise: it's learnable, even in hard circumstances, even by someone who had every reason to be bitter. That alone is worth taking seriously, whatever you make of where he says the secret came from.
If a peace that doesn't depend on circumstances sounds like something worth learning, it's worth finding out what he says the secret actually was.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.