Summary
Gratefulness in All Circumstances
Paul's exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 presents a trifecta of God's will for His people: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." The third element deserves careful attention, because it is easy to misread. To "give thanks in all circumstances" is not a command to deny pain, to stuff grief down, or to pretend hardship is something other than what it is.
Scripture itself refuses such a reading. An entire category of the Psalms—the lament psalms—gives voice to grief before God. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, agonized over Jerusalem, and was in anguish at Gethsemane. The life of faith makes room for sorrow. Gratefulness "in all circumstances" never asks a grieving father to thank God for the death of his child, or a widow to thank God that her husband died on the threshold of retirement, or a patient to thank God for a devastating diagnosis. The little word in does not mean for.
But what then of Ephesians 5:20, where Paul writes, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"? The key is context. Paul is writing here in the framework of corporate worship—note verse 19's psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs sung among God's gathered people. His language echoes the berakah prayers of Scripture, of which there are some forty examples in the Old Testament and many more in the New. Berakah prayers are not personal petitions about individual circumstances; they are adoration that lifts up the mighty deeds and gracious acts of God. Paul opens Ephesians itself with such a prayer Ephesians 1:3-14, knowing his letter would be read aloud when the church assembled.
So the "everything" of Ephesians 5:20 is the everything of God's goodness, His grace, and His mighty saving works—above all, the cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ. We give thanks for the circumstances of the cross, where Christ endured suffering to win our forgiveness, reconcile the world to God, and secure for us life eternal. That is the worshiping, praising "for everything" of the berakah.
This frees us to understand what "in all circumstances" actually means. As David Murray puts it: a Christian does not give thanks for an assault, but gives thanks to God in that circumstance for how He sustains, strengthens, and even uses the survivor to minister to others. A son-in-law does not give thanks for terminal cancer, but gives thanks in the circumstance for the witness of faith his father-in-law bears in Christ. We give thanks for God's presence, His strength, and the unexpected blessings that He sprouts even in the most terrible soil—without ever minimizing how terrible the soil is. See “All Circumstances” 11-6-22.
Who God is gives us the confidence to give thanks while the circumstances themselves remain hard. He has gone through the worst of all circumstances on our behalf and emerged from the empty tomb. One day all our circumstances will give way to the gates of heaven. Until then, in the circumstances—whatever they are—we give thanks for the magnificence of the One who walks through them with us.
Video citations
- “All Circumstances” 11-6-22 — Would you open your Bibles, please, with me? For our study today, to first desolonyans, the fifth chapter. First desolonyans, chapter five, if you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, you're…