Thanksgiving (Pao): An Investigation of a Pauline Theme (NSBT Vol. 13) / January 01, 2002

Requires Accordance 11.2 or above.

Also available in the 42-volume NSBT bundle. See list of other NSBT volumes.

“Be thankful” (Colossians 3:15) is a recurring exhortation in the letters of the apostle Paul. No other New Testament writer gives such a sustained emphasis on thanksgiving—and yet, major modern studies of Paul fail to wrestle with it.

David Pao aims to rehabilitate this theme in this comprehensive and accessible study, a New Studies in Biblical Theology volume. He shows how, for Paul, thanksgiving is grounded in the covenantal traditions of salvation history. To offer thanks to God is to live a life of worship and to anticipate the future acts of God, all in submission to the lordship of Christ. Ingratitude to God is idolatry. Thanksgiving functions as a link between theology, including eschatology, and ethics.

Here Pao provides clear insights into the passion of an apostle who never fails to insist on the significance of both the gospel message and the response this message demands.

About the Series:
Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprised by New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

New Studies in Biblical Theology volumes focus on three areas:

• the nature and status of biblical theology, including its relationship to other disciplines
• the articulation and exposition of the structure of thought from a particular biblical writer or text
• the delineation of a biblical theme across the biblical corpus

While volume notes interact with the best of recent research, the text of each work avoids untransliterated Greek and Hebrew or too much specialist jargon. The volumes are written within the framework of confessional evangelicalism, but they also engage a variety of other relevant viewpoints and significant literature.