1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Ephesians 5:20
Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ concerning you.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (347-407): This is the will of God concerning us―that we give thanks.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The obligation to gratitude, often neglected by us, is singularly, earnestly, and frequently enjoined in the New Testament. I am afraid that the average Christian man does not recognise its importance as an element in his Christian experience.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): God is continually loading you with his benefits; you deserve nothing of His kindness; therefore give Him thanks for His unmerited bounties―for all the favours that He has bestowed upon you.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): And we should give thanks for all things; not only for spiritual blessings enjoyed, and eternal ones expected, but for temporal mercies too.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): For things temporal―for our beings, and the preservation of them, and for all the mercies of life. For things spiritual―for Christ, and for all spiritual blessings in Him; for electing, redeeming, sanctifying, adopting, pardoning, and justifying grace; for a meetness for heaven, and for eternal life itself; and for the Gospel, promises, truths, ordinances, and ministry. And this is to be done always, at all times, in times of adversity, desertion, temptation, affliction, and persecution, as well as in prosperity.
MATTHEW HENRY: And not only for what immediately concerns ourselves, but for the instances of God’s kindness and favour to others also.
JOHN NELSON DARBY (1800-1882): But, then, I am in this world of sorrow, and what am I to do? See God in it all.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Every thing should be viewed as proceeding from a God of love: not even chastisement itself should be regarded as a token of His wrath, but rather as a mark of paternal tenderness, whereby He both intimates our relation to Him, and seeks to establish and confirm it. Nothing, however penal in its aspect, should be viewed in any other light. We should taste His love in every thing.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Even in our afflictions we have large occasion of thanksgiving. For what is fitter or more suitable for pacifying us, than when we learn that God embraces us in Christ so tenderly, that He turns to our advantage and welfare everything that befalls us?
WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): No matter what God does, or permits to be done, I am entitled by faith to receive it as a blessing to my soul, and for this therefore give thanks. Whatever the trial may be, disappointment, scorn, distraction, the thousand influences that come from an evil world; it is not that I am to thank Him for these, but for the blessing that God designs for me through them.
ADAM CLARKE: For this reason―that all things work together for good to them that love God, Romans 8:28; therefore, every occurrence may be a subject of gratitude and thankfulness.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Be thankful things are not worse. Be thankful that if the Lord be our shepherd we shall not lack any good thing, Psalm 23:1. Be thankful that our trials are only for a comparatively brief moment, whereas the sufferings of the wicked will last for all eternity―happily recognize and gratefully acknowledge that the very things which cross our wills, and which nature dislikes, are appointed by unerring Wisdom and infinite Love.
JEROME (340-420): This is a practice proper to Christians, to be heartily thankful for crosses.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Ah, that is hard. It is possible, but it is only possible if we ‘pray without ceasing,’ and dwell beside God all the days of our lives, and all the hours of every day.
WILLIAM KELLY: Understand that it is rather the directing of the heart, than of exacting something from it. There is a great difference between these two things: so legal are our hearts naturally, that even with the knowledge of God we have, we are apt to clothe the words of our God to us under the form of a law to which we have to bend, instead of seeing it as being the goodly portion God has given us―this thanksgiving always for all things is naturally the expression of the heart taught of the Holy Ghost. It is indeed pure unbelief, wherever the heart is not thus able―the hindrance lies there.
JOHN NELSON DARBY: It naturally takes some time to work this thankfulness in us, but of Jesus it is said, when He was rejected by Chorazin and Bethsaida, “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee,” Matthew 11:25. He saw God in it—and so, when we can see sorrow coming from God, that His hand is in it, we can say, “Oh! then I will thank Thee for it.” It is not so directly with us sometimes, but it is wrought in the soul afterwards, when the risings of the flesh are subdued.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: As we look back, we see the meaning of these old days, and their possible blessings, and the loving purposes which sent them, a great deal more clearly than we did whilst we were passing through them. The mountains that, when you are close to them, are barren rock and cold snow, glow in the distance with royal purples. And so, if we, from our standing point in God, will look back on our lives, losses will disclose themselves as gains, sorrows as harbingers of joy, conflict as a means of peace, the crooked things will be straight, and the rough places plain; and we may for every thing in the past give thanks.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): “Oh but,” you say, “there are some things I cannot give thanks for. There are some things so hard and difficult to bear, things that cut my very soul.” Wait a moment. Have you ever undergone a serious physical operation as a result of which you have been delivered from some condition that was wearing out your very life? When you had to undergo it, it seemed hard, but as you look back on it, do you not give thanks for the surgeon’s knife?
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: The exhortation as applied to the present means that we bow our wills, that we believe that all things are working together for our good, and that, like Job in his best moments, we shall say, “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord.”
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Job blessed God as well for taking as giving. He knew that God afflicted him to refine him, not to ruin him.
H. A. IRONSIDE: Someday, “When we stand with Christ in glory, Looking o’er life’s finished story,” we will see more clearly why all the hard things were permitted. We will understand how God our Father was seeking to free us from obstacles and burdens by pruning the branches so that they would produce fruit for Himself. In that day we will thank Him for all the sorrow as well as for all the joy. In faith let us do it now.
