A Brief Theology of Thanksgiving
by Jeremy Craft
Scripture’s teaching on thankfulness is a tough pill to swallow at times. The Bible is clear: Give “thanks always and for everything to God” (Eph. 5:20) and “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18). But what does that look like? How do we give thanks when we feel miserable or when our circumstances are actually bad, and not just perceived as bad? At times it can feel as if this standard is impossible to achieve.
What is more, the cynical mood of our present culture can make us suspicious of gratitude. To many, expressions of gratitude are rooted in a form of sentimentalism that feels cliché, trite, or trivial. Is gratitude just another way people avoid dealing with the harsh realities of life—a subtle way to put a positive spin on a horrible situation? Perhaps thankful people are just feel-good escapists or are living in denial.
Despite these sentiments, people still long to experience the good life, particularly when everything is going wrong, and they understand that gratitude is a part of achieving it. Many Christians really want and try to be thankful but find it difficult to be so. They rightly acknowledge that thanks is owed to God, but what they know in their head struggles to make it to the heart.
As recipients of God’s grace, our desire is not to pay mere lip service to God, we actually want to feel and express gratitude rightly. A theology of thanksgiving will help us to think correctly about the role of gratitude in the Christian life.
Thinking About Gratitude Biblically
The old hymn encourages us to “count our many blessings.” The Bible’s teaching on gratitude tells us that and much more. Often it is merely seen as a self-help technique that alleviates stress and serves as a coping mechanism for getting through difficult times. However, thanksgiving is a profoundly theological and spiritual discipline that stems from our union with Christ. A Biblical understanding of thanksgiving is concerned with an awareness of God’s incredible goodness, that God is infinite in all His perfections, and calls us to live in awe of who He is and what He has done for us in Christ. Thus, the Christian not only appreciates the gifts he receives from God but also gives thanks to the Giver because the gift testifies of Him.
St. Paul speaks of Christians as those who abound in thanksgiving: “Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7). To abound in thanksgiving is to be full of or to overflow with thankfulness. Because we have been “rooted”, “built up”, and “established” in the faith, we overflow with gratitude.
This abundance of gratitude doesn’t simply happen by making a list of things we are thankful for (although we should do that from time to time). Rather, this is a posture of the heart that recognizes our total dependence on God and His work for us through Christ. Such awareness overflows with thankfulness for Him and His goodness. But if this is what gratitude is, what, then, causes ingratitude?
The Root of Ingratitude
The root of ingratitude goes back to the Fall of humanity in Genesis 3. Satan tempted our first parents by making them think God was withholding something from them by not allowing them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He said, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5). Adam and Eve’s sin was that they focused on what they didn’t have—the forbidden fruit—as opposed to what God had given them—paradise. They determined what was good for themselves and became wise in their own eyes (Gen. 3:6). From this discontentment sprouted a heart of ingratitude.
St. Paul picks up on this in Romans 1:21: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (emphasis mine). Here he says that ingratitude is why God gave humanity over to its own wickedness as a sign of judgment. Why did they not give thanks? Verse 22 says, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” Humanity thought itself wiser than God and, as a result, did not thank or honor Him.
When ingratitude sets in, we think that God is withholding from us something we are entitled to. In her book Growing in Gratitude, Mary Mohler writes, “We are surrounded by a contemporary culture where entitlement rules. People are convinced they deserve to be happy, healthy, rich, and empowered. Self-absorption creeps in and takes root.”[1] Ingratitude is an entitlement mentality that claims God has not given what we rightly deserve.
Thus, the fall of humanity into sin has at its root ingratitude. This helps us to understand why it can be so difficult for us to be thankful toward God. Our sinful nature is bent toward ingratitude. It’s a lot easier to complain about our circumstances than to give thanks to God. When we lose our way, we become grumpy and turn from the Lord.
This happened to Israel after God had led it out of Egypt into the wilderness. The people became hungry and grumbled against the Lord. They said to Moses, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex. 16:3). They discounted all that God had done instead of trusting that, since He had delivered them from Egypt, then surely He would provide them food. Yet when the people did not get what they desired, they grumbled and were ungrateful.
Can we see why God finds ingratitude repulsive? It is an affront and insult to Him. It says that what He has given us is not enough. Instead of thanking Him, we accuse God of withholding what rightly belongs to us. Even in his state of innocence before the fall, man in no way deserved what God had done for him. His very life was a gift. God simply created all the earth as a generous gift to the human race. All that was required was for us to keep it and enjoy it. We deserve nothing that God has given us.
The irony is that the only thing God withholds from us is the one thing we actually deserve: eternal judgment. Combating ungratefulness begins by remembering God’s grace in salvation. If God has gone to such great lengths in giving his Son Jesus as a substitute for our sin, then surely more is to come. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).
Hence, we practice gratitude, not merely as a spiritual exercise in sanctification, but because it is just. It is both right and good. We have a moral obligation to give thanks. Knowing this, however, is only half the battle. Showing gratitude because we’re “supposed to” is not going to make us more grateful. To counteract ingratitude, we need to understand gratitude’s purpose.
God’s Purpose for Gratitude
St. Paul writes, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). In his study on thanksgiving in Paul’s epistles, David Pao contends, “Thanksgiving in Paul is an act of worship. It is not focused primarily on the benefits received or the blessed condition of a person; instead, God is the centre of thanksgiving.”[2] Again, he says, “When giving thanks, God the creator of all is acknowledged to be the source of all goodness.”[3] Jonathan Edwards makes a similar conclusion in Religious Affections: “True gratitude or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us, arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what he is in himself . . . ”[4] The worship of God is the highest aim of thanksgiving, because at the center of thanksgiving is God Himself.
Thanksgiving is an act of worship that invites us to reflect on all that God gives, to enjoy it, and, in turn, give thanks to Him. More importantly, however, thanksgiving calls us to delight in God Himself. Just as God’s gifts are an expression of His love for us, our gratitude is an expression of our love for Him. God wants us to delight in Him, as He delights in us. Such is the case for any person who is the object of one’s love.
In turn, gratitude helps us to see what God is doing in our midst because it causes us to reflect upon God and appreciate His perfection. A heart attuned to God and His goodness, despite all that is wrong, will be able to appreciate the smallest of things, because they are seen truly as gifts. Indeed, this is the ultimate expression of worship. Without thankfulness, we will miss all that is good in life.
During the pandemic, many people lost their taste when they contracted the coronavirus. One person told me that eating a brownie tasted like sludge in his mouth. Without his taste, eating food was not a pleasurable experience. That’s what life is like without thanksgiving. Though we may clearly see God’s blessings, without it, we are unable to appreciate them because we cannot taste their goodness. Gratitude is the taste bud of life. It helps us to taste the goodness of God in all things. Without it, life loses its flavor.
[1] Mary Mohler, Growing in Gratitude: Rediscovering the Joy of a Thankful Heart (Good Book Company, 2018), 10.
[2] David W. Pao, Thanksgiving; An Investigation of a Pauline Theme (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 28.
[3] Ibid, 32.
[4] Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Ames, Iowa: International Outreach), 81, PDF File, http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/ReligiousAffections.pdf