1 Thessalonians 5:16 to 18 · Passage · Gratitude
In All Circumstances
Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 5:18 to a church that had received the message in great suffering, and Philippians 4:6 from chains.
Fourteen days into a storm that had taken away all hope of rescue, a prisoner on board urged 276 people to eat and began the meal with thanks.
Rejoice at all times.
- The passage
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16 to 18, Philippians 4:4 to 7
- Books
- 1 Thessalonians, Philippians
- When
- 407
- Hold in memory
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16 to 18, Philippians 4:6 to 7
Summary
In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Paul commands believers to give thanks in every circumstance and gives the reason: this is God's will for them in Christ Jesus. In Philippians 4:6 to 7 he joins thanksgiving to every prayer and petition and promises that the peace of God will guard the heart and the mind. Paul kept both commands in his own hardships, and the church has kept them in exile, sickness and loss.
- Joy, prayer and thanks are commanded together in 1 Thessalonians 5:16 to 18, and the thanks of verse 18 is given in the prayer of verse 17.
- Paul's verb for give thanks is in the present tense, which asks for thanks kept up day after day.
- Job 1:21 and Habakkuk 3:17 to 18 bless and rejoice in the LORD after loss, long before Paul wrote.
- Paul recorded thanks or joy in the Lord while he was in chains, opposed by rival preachers and in need.
- Christians differ over the for everything of Ephesians 5:20. John Wesley and Adam Clarke give thanks for adverse things because God works all things for good, and John Chrysostom and Thomas Watson give thanks for the hardship itself as a medicine from God.
Three Commands in 1 Thessalonians 5
Paul gives three short commands near the close of his first letter to the church at Thessalonica, and the third carries the reason for all three.
Two of Paul's letters to churches he had founded carry his commands on thanksgiving. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16 to 18 he sets thanks beside joy and prayer as a standing order for the church. In Philippians 4:4 to 7 he joins thanks to every request brought to God. Both belong to gratitude, the answer of thanks that Scripture asks of people toward a good God, and they stand at the place where thanks is hardest to give: in loss, need and danger.
The question the page answers is what Paul asks of a believer whose circumstances are hard, and on what ground he asks it. The page sets out the two passages verse by verse and a table of Paul's own hardships beside the thanks he recorded in them. It then gives the prayers of Israel behind the command, the teachers who kept it, and the old disagreement over thanks in every circumstance or for everything.
Pray without ceasing.The shortest of the three commands sets the habit the other two depend on.
Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.This verse commands thanks in every circumstance and grounds it in God's will for believers in Christ Jesus.
In the Greek of verse 18 the verb is eucharisteite, a present imperative of eucharisteo, and the phrase before it, en panti, means in everything. The phrase places the thanks inside each circumstance the believer meets.
John Chrysostom applied the verse to disease, the loss of goods and false accusation by enemies in his tenth homily on 1 Thessalonians. He told his hearers that "Always to give thanks, this is a mark of a philosophic soul", and that if they gave thanks to God, "the evil is changed into good".
Paul's Hardships and His Thanks
Three hardships come from Philippians and one from Acts 27, each with its verse.
Three of the four hardships are in Philippians, written from prison, and the fourth is the storm of Acts 27.
| The hardship | In the Berean text | The thanks or joy, in the Berean text |
|---|---|---|
| In chains | it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ (Philippians 1:13) | I thank my God every time I remember you (Philippians 1:3) |
| Opposed by rival preachers | supposing that they can add to the distress of my chains (Philippians 1:17) | Christ is preached. And in this I rejoice (Philippians 1:18) |
| In need | to being filled and being hungry, to having plenty and having need (Philippians 4:12) | Now I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have revived your concern for me (Philippians 4:10) |
| In a storm at sea | we abandoned all hope of being saved (Acts 27:20) | Paul took bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all (Acts 27:35) |
In the first three rows Paul's thanks or joy is for what God was doing through other people: the church's partnership in the gospel, the preaching of Christ and the gift sent from Philippi. The fourth row is set before the soldiers, sailors and prisoners on board, and Acts 27:36 records that they were all encouraged and ate.
Philippians 4, from Rejoicing to Peace
Philippians 4:4 to 7 moves in four verses from joy in the Lord to the peace that guards the believer, and verses 11 to 13 and 19 show the same trust in Paul's own need.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!Paul repeats the command to rejoice and gives it its object, the Lord, while he writes in chains.
Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near.Paul sets the nearness of the Lord between the call to gentleness and the command against anxiety in the next verse.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.Anxiety is answered by prayer in everything, and every request is to be brought with thanksgiving.
Verse 6 joins the requests to thanksgiving with eucharistia, a noun of the same family as the verb of 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Thanks for what God has already given goes up with the request for what is still needed.
John Wesley's note on the words with thanksgiving, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), reads: "The surest mark of a soul free from care, and of prayer joined with true resignation."
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.The promise that follows the prayer is God's own peace, set as a guard.
I am not saying this out of need, for I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances. I know how to live humbly, and I know how to abound. I am accustomed to any and every situation—to being filled and being hungry, to having plenty and having need. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.Paul says he has learned contentment in plenty and in hunger, which shows the command of verse 6 kept in his own life.
And my God will supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.Paul closes his thanks for the church's gift with the promise that God will supply all their needs.
Philippians 4:6, Philippians 4:7, Philippians 4:11 to 13, Philippians 4:19
The Prayers of Israel Behind the Command
Two Old Testament passages, one from the book of Job and one from the prophet Habakkuk, stand behind Paul's command.
saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”Job spoke these words on the day he lost his children and his livestock, and he names the LORD as both the giver and the taker.
Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!Habakkuk lists every failure of the field and the fold and then rejoices in the LORD, the same shape Paul's command takes.
Chrysostom's sermon on 1 Thessalonians 5:18 sends the hearer to Job 1:21, and Paul's own reason, God's will in Christ Jesus, gives the old prayer its fullest ground.
How the Church Kept the Command
A preacher dying in exile, a pastor writing to a friend and a preacher in a grave illness each kept thanks in hardship.
died 407 · John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom was deposed and marched into a second exile, and in 407 he fell sick on the road and died. Palladius, in his Dialogue concerning the Life of Chrysostom (translated by Herbert Moore, 1921), records that he received the sacrament and offered his last prayer using his customary formula, "Glory to God for all things". The word customary shows that the phrase was his habit through life before it was his last word.
1725 to 1807 · John Newton
John Newton, in a letter of 26 January 1775 printed in Cardiphonia, wrote that a Christian "should be humble, patient, meek, cheerful, thankful under all events and changes."
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon chose his sermon Gratitude for Deliverance from the Grave, on Psalm 118:17 to 18, to open volume 38 of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (1892) as his testimony while he lay gravely ill. In it he says, "I bear my willing witness that sickness has brought me health, loss has conferred gain, and I doubt not that one day death will bring me fuller life."
In Every Circumstance or for Everything
1 Thessalonians 5:18 says en panti, in every circumstance, and Ephesians 5:20 says hyper panton, for everything, and teachers have read the second phrase in two ways.
always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.This verse uses the preposition for, so the question arises whether the hardship itself is among the things a believer thanks God for.
And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.Both readings below rest on this promise that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him.
Thanks for adverse things, because God works them for goodJohn Wesley; Adam Clarke
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), glosses the words for all things in Ephesians 5:20 as "Prosperous or adverse, since all work together for good". Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, gives the same reason on 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and concludes that "every occurrence may be a subject of gratitude and thankfulness".
The objection: Chrysostom and Watson find a gift of God in the affliction itself, a medicine and a bridle, so on their reading the thanks need not wait on the outcome.
Thanks for the hardship itself, as a medicine from GodJohn Chrysostom; Thomas Watson
In his nineteenth homily on Ephesians, John Chrysostom asks whether a believer is to give thanks for everything that befalls him. His answer is "Yes; be it even disease, be it even penury", and he carries the thanks even to the dread of hell, which is "laid like a bridle on our hearts". Thomas Watson, the Puritan, in A Divine Cordial (1663), likens thanks in affliction to thanking a physician who gives a bitter pill.
The objection: Chrysostom and Watson both give the benefit of the hardship as the reason for the thanks. That is the ground of the first reading, so the two readings stand closer than their wording suggests.
Thanks Kept as a Habit
Paul asks for thanks that rests on God's will and is offered to God Himself, so it can be given on any day, however the day goes. The command is kept one circumstance at a time, in the next request brought to God.
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful,Paul joins prayer and thanks again in Colossians, and the watchfulness he asks for is the habit 1 Thessalonians 5:18 commands.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Greek text of 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Philippians 4:6 and Ephesians 5:20, with Strong's numbers g2168, g2169 and g3956 and their morphology.
- STEP Bible TBESG, the brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922), entries g2168 and g2169.
- John Chrysostom, Homily 10 on 1 Thessalonians, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, volume 13.
- John Chrysostom, Homily 19 on Ephesians, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, volume 13.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible.
- Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial (London, 1663)
- Palladius, The Dialogue of Palladius concerning the Life of Chrysostom, translated by Herbert Moore (London: SPCK, 1921)
- John Newton, Cardiphonia (London: Tegg, 1829)
- C. H. Spurgeon, Gratitude for Deliverance from the Grave, Sermon No. 2237, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 38 (1892)
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