ACC ~ Ephesians 5 v20

WHAT IT MEANS TO GIVE THANKS IN CHRIST’S NAME. AMBROSIASTER: 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. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 5.21.

EXTOL GOD ALWAYS AND IN EVERYTHING. JEROME: 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. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 3.5.20.