In this paper, we consider a discrete four-point boundary value problem $$\triangle\bigl(\phi_p\bigl(\triangle u(k-1)\bigr)\bigr)+ \lambda e(k)f\bigl(u(k)\bigr)=0,\quad k\in N(1,T),$$ subject to boundary conditions $$\triangle u(0)-\alpha u(l_{1})=0,\qquad\triangle u(T)+\beta u(l_{2})=0,$$ by a simple application of a fixed point theorem. If e(k),f(u(k)) are nonnegative, the solutions of the above problem may not be nonnegative, this is the main difficulty for us to study positive solution of this problem. In this paper, we give restrictive conditions αl 1≤1, β(T+1−l 2)≤1 to guarantee the solutions of this problem are nonnegative, if it has, under the conditions e(k),f(u(k)) are nonnegative. We first construct a new operator equation which is equivalent to the problem and provide sufficient conditions for the nonexistence and existence of at least one or two positive solutions. In doing so, the usual restrictions $f_{0}=\lim_{u\rightarrow 0^{+}}\frac{f(u)}{\phi_{p}(u)}$ and $f_{\infty}=\lim_{u\rightarrow\infty}\frac{f(u)}{\phi_{p}(u)}$ exist are removed.