1 Corinthians 1:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What Paul teaches others when he says, "With thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Phil 4:6), he also does himself. He instructs us to begin everything with these words and to thank God before all else.

Nothing is so pleasing to God as thanksgiving, both for oneself and for others. Therefore Paul begins almost every epistle in this way. Here, however, it was more necessary to do this than in the others.

One who gives thanks gives thanks as one who senses a benefit and, as it were, gives back for the grace bestowed. But grace is neither a debt, nor a reward, nor a repayment.

Everyone needs to know this, and the Corinthians especially needed it, since they were inclining toward those who divided the Church.

"I thank God continually." He teaches us to be thankful. He does this in almost every epistle, but now he speaks of thanksgiving especially appropriately.

Thanksgiving is for a benefaction, and a benefaction is neither a debt nor a repayment. Therefore by this also he casts down the pride of the Corinthians.

"My God." Because of his great love, he makes his own the God Who is common to all.

"For you, because of the grace of God." By this he teaches the Corinthians always to have thankful thoughts toward God, and not toward their own works. For he says: I give thanks because of the grace of God, not because of your works.

"Given to you in Christ Jesus." That is, through Christ Jesus, and not through this or that man. Why then do you give heed to men?

"I thank my God always concerning you." Here the Apostle begins his epistle by declaring his thanksgiving before God for all the heavenly benefits which the Corinthians were counted worthy to receive by the grace and mediation of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This introduction contains a thanksgiving discourse. This manner of writing was proper to the Apostle Paul, who usually begins all his epistles with expressions of thanksgiving.

He presents this thanksgiving in the following sense: you, Corinthians, have been counted worthy to receive from God His highest mercy. You who formerly were by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3) now feel the love shown to you by the heavenly Father through the mediation of His beloved Son.

All this gives me sufficient cause to send up my thanksgiving to my God on your behalf.

I thank my God always because you do not fall short in any grace given to the other Churches. But one thing is lacking in you: the expectation of the revelation of our Lord, so that you may appear pure and blameless on that day.

Paul calls it grace given by God, which was given in Christ Jesus. For God has ordained that the one who believes in Christ will be saved without labor. By faith alone he freely receives the remission of sins.

Since the Apostle is about to rebuke them, he first sweetens their hearing, so that he may make them capable of receiving the remedy. Meanwhile, what he says is not false, for he thanked God for gifts truly given to them. He expresses this with greater clarity.

“I give thanks for the grace of God given to you.” This is not captatio benevolentiae, so common among secular writers and ordinary people. It is proof of the Apostle’s sincere concern for the Church of Corinth. Despite disorders and quarrels, that Church had not been deprived of abundant spiritual gifts. The Apostle then explains what grace the Corinthians possessed.

In the opening words of his epistle, speaking both in his own person and in that of Sosthenes the brother, St. Paul gives to "the Church of God which is in Corinth" the usual "grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

First, he bears witness to his continual thanksgiving to God "for the grace of God given to the members of the Corinthian Church in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor 1:4), so that they "are not lacking in any gift."

Then he expresses the hope that the Lord will so "confirm them to the end, that they may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:8). For "God is faithful, by Whom they were called into the fellowship of His Son" (1 Cor 1:9).

In giving thanks to God for granting grace to the Corinthians, the Apostle on the one hand praises them as those counted worthy of this greatest divine gift. On the other hand, in this very thing he lays the foundation for his further judgment concerning their condition.

From the great multitude of gracious gifts, the Apostle Paul first points to their enrichment with verbal and intellectual knowledge concerning all the subjects of Christ's teaching.

From this he then concludes that the Lord, having so enriched them, will not leave them without His gracious help in the future. Thus they may calmly await even the dread day of the Lord's judgment. But to deserve this, they must correct themselves.

In thanking God for the grace of faith and for the gifts given to the Corinthians, Saint Paul names only the gift of speech and understanding among the gifts. The errors of the Corinthians touched these matters.

As for the other gifts, he mentions them generally, saying that they lack none. By such a beginning, "since he intends to rebuke, he first sweetens their hearing, so that they may become capable of receiving the medicine.

At the same time, what he says is not false, because he thanks God for gifts truly given to them" (Theodoret).

"I thank God." "What Saint Paul teaches others when he says, 'Let your requests be made known to God with thanksgiving' (Phil 4:6), he himself also does.