November 24, 2010 by C.J. Mahaney
Categories: God's love
Because of my sinful tendency to complain, I study the topic of gratefulness regularly. What a fitting time of year to be reminded of what theologian Peter T. O’Brien writes:
Paul mentions the subject of thanksgiving in his letters more often, line for line, than any other Hellenistic author, pagan or Christian. The eucharisteō word group turns up forty-six times in the Pauline corpus and appears in many important contexts of every letter except Galatians and Titus. The apostle’s thanksgiving terms consistently express the notion of gratitude which finds outward, and often public, expression in thanksgiving. By mentioning what God has graciously done in his Son, other Christians are encouraged to thank him also. As thanksgivings abound, so God is glorified (2 Cor 4:15; cf. 2 Cor 1:11).…
The grounds for the offering of thanks are wide-ranging: from the personal expression of gratitude offered to Christ for showing mercy to Paul (1 Tim 1:12), to the triumph over sin and death which Christ has effected on behalf of his people (1 Cor 15:54–55, 57; cf. Rom 7:25) and to the ultimate gift of God’s Son (2 Cor 8:16; cf. 2 Cor 8:9).*
To encounter Paul was to experience gratefulness.
* Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 69, 71.