In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Read Chapter 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Most appropriately have we all this day sung together, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only does wondrous things.” For marvelous, and beyond all expectation, are the things which have happened. A whole city, and so great a population, when just about to be overwhelmed—to sink under the waves, and to be utterly and instantly destroyed—he has entirely rescued from shipwreck in a single moment of time! Let us give thanks, then, not only that God has calmed the tempest but that he permitted it to take place. Not only did he rescue us from shipwreck, but he allowed us to fall into such distress and permitted such an extreme peril to hang over us. Thus also Paul bids us “in every thing give thanks.” But when he says, “In every thing give thanks,” he means not only in our deliverance from evils but also at the time when we suffer those evils.
If equanimity be the contention, you have Lycurgus choosing death by self-starvation, because the Lacons had made some emendation of his laws: the Christian, even when he is condemned, gives thanks.
