Giving thanks always for all things unto God, even the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
We are told to give thanks to God for all his gifts. For God has stooped low to adopt us through Christ his own Son, through whom we know God. We have learned that God, being Spirit, is to be adored in the Spirit. So we submit ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ, who commanded us to pursue humility.
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...
Giving thanks always, he says, for all things.
What then? Are we to give thanks for everything that befalls us? Yes; be it even disease, be it even penury. For if a certain wise man gave this advice in the Old Testament, and said, Whatsoever is brought upon you take cheerfully, and be patient when you are changed to a low estate Sirach 2:4; much more ought this to be the case in the New. Yes, even though thou know not the word, give thanks. For this is thanksgiving. But if you give thanks when you are in comfort and in affluence, in success and in prosperity, there is nothing great, nothing wonderful in that. What is required is, for a man to give thanks when he is in afflictions, in anguish, in discouragements. Utter no word in preference to this, Lord, I thank you. And why do I speak of the afflictions of this world? It is our duty to give God thanks, even for hell itself, for the torments and punishments of the next world. For surely it is a thing beneficial to those who attend t...
Always, he says, giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ unto God even the Father, subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
That is, let your requests be made known unto God, with thanksgiving Philippians 4:6; for there is nothing so pleasing to God, as for a man to be thankful. But we shall be best able to give thanks unto God, by withdrawing our souls from the things before mentioned, and by thoroughly cleansing them by the means he has told us.
