Giving thanks always for all things unto God, even the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
All Commentaries on Ephesians 5:20 Go To Ephesians 5
Jerome
AD 420
Paul now calls us to “give thanks always and in everything.” This is to be understood in a double sense, both in adversity and in good times…. In this way the mind rejoices and bursts out in gratitude to God, not only for what we think good but for what troubles us and happens against our will…. It is obvious that generally we are called to give thanks to God for the sun that rises, for the day that goes by and for the night that brings rest … for the rains that come, for the earth that brings forth fruit and for the elements in their course…. Finally, we are thankful that we are born, that we have being, that our wants are sufficiently taken care of in the world, as if we lived in the house of an extremely powerful family patriarch, knowing that whatever is in the world has been created on our account. In this way we give thanks when we are grateful for the benefits that come to us from God. All these things, however, the heathen also does, and the Jew and the publican and the Gentile. But the second sense of giving thanks is seen in the special gift of Christians to give thanks to God even in seeming adversity…. Those who are saintly in their own eyes are prone to give thanks to God because they have been released from dangers and afflictions. But according to the apostle the greater virtue is to give thanks to God precisely amid those very dangers and afflictions. .
