"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. Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising 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.
"Very few treatments of this theme in Paul comprehensively reflect on the theology of thanksgiving and how such theology is deeply embedded in Paul's thought, and in the gospel itself. Pao supplies the lack, and does so in a way that is both informed and edifying. His study is not only the stuff of biblical theology and grist for many sermons but will prove to be the occasion for self-examination, repentance and a new resolve to be thankful."
D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois)
