In the past I attended a church where at the end of the Scripture reading, the reader would say:
This is the Word of the Lord
And the congregation would respond:
Thanks be to God
Does anyone know the origins of this tradition?
Ken Graham♦
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asked Mar 8, 2015 at 12:06
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«Thanks be to God» is, in its Latin form «Deo gratias», used after the epistle reading in the traditional Catholic (Latin) mass, which was codified by Pope St. Pius V in the 16th century, but which actually goes back much farther. I’m not sure how much older this particular usage is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it went back another thousand years or so. In the traditional mass, this «Deo Gratias» is not said aloud by the whole congregation (though we may, and I do, «say» it mentally) but by the altar servers.
«This is the Word of the Lord», on the other hand, seems to have been introduced in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s, though it may have been in use earlier in some Protestant denominations.
answered Mar 9, 2015 at 1:42
The origin of this particular form is the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (General Instruction of the Roman Missal), the document «governing the celebration of Mass of the ordinary form of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church since 1969.» (1)
Here’s the English translation from the latest edition of said document:
- After the collect, all sit. The priest may, very briefly, introduce the faithful to the Liturgy of the Word. Then the lector
goes to the ambo and, from the Lectionary already placed there before
Mass, proclaims the first reading, to which all listen. At the end,
the lector says the acclamation, Verbum Domini (The word of the Lord),
and all respond, Deo gratias (Thanks be to God). (General Instruction of the Roman Missal)
(Prior to 1991, Verbum Domini was translated as «This is the Word of the Lord.») (3)
Episcopalians have adopted it into the liturgical rubric. Lutherans as well. There are probably others. But generally, we can thank the Roman Catholics and Vatican II.
Conceptually, the origin is scripture.
But the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word that was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:25)
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15)
answered Mar 9, 2015 at 19:00
StephenStephen
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1
After Vatican 2 the Latin Mass was translated into English fairly hastily and many phrases were made more simple; for example the Priest said ‘The Lord be with you’ and the people responded ‘And also with you’. When the Roman Missal was revised on the First Sunday of Advent in 2011, the people’s response was changed to ‘And with your Spirit’. This change was more in keeping with the Latin response ‘et cum Spiritu tuo’.
At the same time the words the lector was to say at the end of the readings were changed to ‘The Word of the Lord’. Since the first translation after Vatican 2 the lector had said (and the Lectionary read) ‘This is the word of the Lord’ almost implying that what had just been read was the complete word of God (which of course it is not).
The same change was made at the end of the Gospel so the Priest should now say ‘the Gospel of the Lord’ (and not ‘This is the Gospel of the Lord’)
answered Sep 14, 2019 at 12:16
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As the holiday season moves into the new year we might be tempted to look back and see all of the ways we are just thankful the year is over. Biblically speaking, giving thanks has less to do with our circumstances and more to do with God Himself. Thanks means to be grateful for or to give gratitude to something or someone. When we talk about giving thanks to God, do you know the ultimate reason we can give thanks? It is tempting to think we must have “things” or perfect circumstances to experience God’s blessings. Do we tend to praise God only when things are good? Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:57, tells us the main reason we celebrate thanksgiving, and it has nothing to do with how we feel.
The Meaning of “Thanks Be to God”
For Paul, giving thanks was an action, not a feeling. Sometimes we think we must feel good to give thanks, and often we are good at giving thanks when we are feeling positive. Throughout the Bible, God insists we be thankful in action, no matter how we feel. Listen to these commands:
1 Thessalonians 5:18 — “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Chronicles 16:34 — “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Psalm 35:18 — “I will give you thanks in the great assembly; among the throngs I will praise you.”
Although we might have a myriad reasons to give thanks, ultimately Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:57 to give thanks for this one reason: Victory in Christ! Victory in Christ has nothing to do with our circumstances, but it does affect our heart’s outlook.
Where Is the Command to Give Thanks in the Bible?
The command to give thanks for Christ’s victory is found in the book of 1 Corinthians. Paul is the author, and he was writing to a church in the city of Corinth. This city was filled with false teaching and division. Paul writes a very convicting letter to them. Paul warns against many things wrong in their church, but as he ends his letter he has some amazing encouragement!
Our passage today is found at the end of the letter. In this section, Paul has been talking about the resurrection of Christ. Although we celebrate Christ’s death because it paid the price for our sins, Paul reminds us the resurrection is the key to living a full Christian life! A victorious life is found in the fact that Christ arose! Death is defeated and we no longer have to face the penalty of sin when we believe in Jesus Christ as Savior.
What Is the Meaning behind 1 Corinthians 15:57?
The last section of 1 Corinthians 15 speaks about the mystery of our own resurrection. Paul admits he doesn’t know exactly how this will work, but we can trust God that we will be raised again on the last day. He says, “Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)
We might not understand all of this, but we can know the last truth in Paul’s words: “Death is swallowed up in victory” Our victory is found in Christ’s death and resurrection. The power of sin to destroy our souls has been beaten. Christ has overcome! This is reason enough to give thanks. Death does not have the final word. Death was our greatest enemy, but Christ defeated it.
Nothing can separate us from God, not even the last enemy, which is death. God says because of Christ’s resurrection we have hope! Think of the worst thing to ever happen to you. Now let this truth sink into your soul: you are never separated from God! Romans 8:35 says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” The answer is NOTHING!
More Than Just Actions
The Greek word Paul uses for “thanks be” in this verse is “charis.” You might recognize this word as it means “grace” as well. It means “that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, and loveliness.” Paul is telling us to give to God our favor. We are to hold God to the highest praise. That is what “give thanks” means. It means there is joy there.
As Christians, we know joy is more than a feeling of happiness. It is a state of the heart. Paul is telling the Christians that God deserves the “thanks.” This is not just an action on our part, but a heart bent. Yes, God commands us to give thanks, but another way to see 1 Corinthians 15:27 is to just recognize that thanks belongs to God.
It is not just the act of giving thanks, but recognizing this “thanks” or “gratitude” already belongs to God. Many other passages in scripture help to show us this as well. These verses remind us our hearts can always give thanks!
“With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever. And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.” Ezra 3:11
“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1
“For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:36
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Colossians 1:15
Why We Need to Give Thanks According to 1 Corinthians 15:57
According to Paul in his letters there are lots of reasons to give thanks. Look at all of the reasons Paul gives us for giving God thanks. As you read these verses, think: what did you do to deserve any of this? How does Christ play a role in these things?
1. We have deliverance from sin! “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25)
2. We have God’s grace! “I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Corinthians 1:4)
3. God listens to our requests! “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
4. We share in Christ’s inheritance! “And giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” (Colossians 1:12)
A Prayer of Thanks for Victory
Dear Father God who loves me so, I give you praise! Your glory shines throughout all of creation, but more so in Christ. In Your Son, whom you gave me so freely, is my reason to give you all of the thanks. I am so grateful for Christ and today I spend this moment giving you thanks. Like Paul, I rejoice in the victory in Christ. When my heart is heavy it is hard to give thanks, but you have proven faithful over and over again. I can look over my life and see the hardships, but I can see the good as well. I can see how you’ve worked in my life to give me good things; your love endures forever, and your will for me is to live forever with you in heaven. What victory you have given me!? Not only do I have peace in this life, a promise waiting for me in the future, but also the daily provisions. Thank you, Lord, for Christ. Thank you, Father, for salvation. Thank you, God, for victory! Amen.
Friend, as you move through your life you will experience many ups and downs. However, God has not left us alone.
Use our 30 Daily Devotionals for Thankfulness to refocus your life in gratitude to God! Save this PDF and share it with your loved ones!
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Sarah E. Frazer is a wife, mother, and writer who loves to strengthen and encourage the weary mom to connect with God so that she can replace feelings of discouragement, disillusionment, and disappointment with God’s daily peace. Sarah is the author of several Bible study resources found on her website, sarahefrazer.com/shop. Follow her on Instagram here and download her Psalms of Gratitude for free here.
This article is part of our larger resource library of popular Bible verse phrases and quotes. We want to provide easy to read articles that answer your questions about the meaning, origin, and history of specific verses within Scripture’s context. It is our hope that these will help you better understand the meaning and purpose of God’s Word in relation to your life today.
«Be Still and Know that I Am God»
«Pray Without Ceasing»
«Fearfully and Wonderfully Made»
«All Things Work Together for Good»
«Do Not Fear»
Walter Brueggemann was being interviewed on the Home Brewed Christianity podcast a few episodes back. In the interview/discussion it was brought up in some form or fashion the reason Christians say, «The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.»* after the scripture is read in worship.
Bruggemann brought up that a reason we say this after the scripture is to affirm that the scripture is our story/text. It is the text which helps define and identify us as a community and a people. This is the Word above all other would be authoritative words in our world. Not the Constitution. Not the Bill of Rights. Not the philosophical thought of Marx or Locke or Dawkins or «the Market» or Plato or Rand. There are devotees of these sources which will elevate these authorities to demi-god status.
For the Christian to say, scripture is the Word of God is not only to say that these other sources are not authoritative in our lives, but it also says that these other sources are in fact not God.
___________
*It is worth noting that we say the Word of God, and not the words of God. This public affirmation of the Scripture is not an affirmation of the idea that what was just read are the literal and specific words of God.
“It’s disturbing to recognize that in the Noah story, God does the same sort of thing that the Babylonian gods do in their flood story.”
That’s what she said, this bold and thoughtful student in
world lit class.
We had been pondering the flood story in the ancient Sumerian/Babylonian
epic Gilgamesh, sorting out the differences from the Genesis version of
the flood story. For instance, the Gilgamesh version involves squabbling
gods who don’t all know what’s going on. The reason the god Enlil causes the flood
is ambiguous, although it seems to be a population-thinning scheme and perhaps a
noise-reduction measure? The Noah figure—called Utanapishtim—takes aboard the
ark not only animals, but seeds, treasure, all his relatives, and a crew of
craftsman (a smart idea, when you think about it). After the flood, as a sort
of apology for his ordeal, the gods grant Utanapishtim and his wife immortality.
The manuscripts (more precisely: tablets) of Gilgamesh
are older than the oldest Genesis manuscripts, so I had asked the class: What
do we do with that knowledge? How can we claim the Bible is special when this
flood story comes in other, older versions?
Students offered varied responses, one of which involved an
effort to rescue inerrancy, so I did a whole song and dance, writing the words “inerrancy,”
“infallibility,” “inspiration,” and “facticity” on the board. I explained the
distinctions among these terms, the problematic nature of expecting facticity
from ancient Near Eastern literature, etc., and tried to convince them that
reading other flood stories and creation stories actually helps us understand and
love the Bible better—because we become more familiar with the genres of
literature the Bible draws upon, and then we can notice the riveting distinctions.
I mean, look at the Genesis story again now: Here we have not a squabbling pantheon,
but one God, a God who cares about righteousness! A God who is—to cite the
words of another student—deliberate, sovereign, and knowledgeable! A God with a
concern for human flourishing and a plan of salvation!
I was on a roll, preaching quite a sermon. Finally, I paused:
All right, comments? Thoughts? What are you all thinking? That’s when our bold
and thoughtful student made her observation, the subtext of which was this: I
hear what you’re saying, professor, but God still destroys the world in a
flood.
We were all a little sobered for a moment. However you stack
up the “facticity” of Genesis, any version of inspiration contends that we have
the stories God meant us to have. And in this story that God meant us to have,
God grieves over the wickedness of human beings and sets out to destroy virtually
all of them in a vast ecological devastation.
Since, as a professor, I can always come up with some next
thing to say, I went into another miniature disquisition. You’re absolutely
right, I replied to the student. When we learn this story as little kids, we
focus on the cute animals and the cute ark and God’s faithfulness and the nice
rainbow. The story does not offer details about screams of terror, bloated
human corpses, the destruction of habitats, all the decaying flesh when the
waters subside—and neither do we. Genesis 7:21-23 notes, somewhat emphatically,
that every living thing died in the flood—except what was on the ark. But we don’t
emphasize that part in Sunday school. We don’t often admit that this is, all in
all, a terrifying story.
Yes, it teaches us about the justice of God, the sovereignty of God, the covenant promises of God, the grief of God—even the way God sees to the need for refugia amid disaster. But it’s still terrifying. And that’s why (I was still yammering on at this point) we read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, in the light of Christ, because as John 1 says, God the only Son, the Word, exegetes the father, long sweep of salvation history, and so on and so forth.
I gave the right answer, I suppose, but I doubt any of us
were entirely satisfied. I know I wasn’t. The fact is, God in Genesis destroys the world
with a flood, just like the Babylonian gods do in Gilgamesh. There’s no
getting around that, no matter how many rainbows we spot in the sky.
It all made me think about those moments in church when the
scripture for the day is read, and the reader concludes: “This is the Word of
the Lord.” And we are supposed to respond, “Thanks be to God.”
Sometimes, when the lectionary delivers to us some brutal
conquest of Canaan or some terrible passage of judgment in Jeremiah, or even
some harsh word of rebuke from Jesus, we’re not sure we feel especially
grateful. When my kids were younger and a passage like this was read in church,
my family would sometimes offer our liturgical reply with a quiet question mark:
“Thanks be to God?” And then we would smirk at each other down the row.
We have the stories God meant us to have. Some of them bring
us into bracing encounter with a sovereign and mysterious God. In other ancient
epics, the “machinery” (as it’s called) depicts divine forces quarreling and
cooperating, councilling and scheming, influencing human affairs in capricious
ways. It was a means, for ancient people, of grappling with the puzzling
question of why things happen. In the Bible, all that “machinery” is
rolled up into a single divine character, the one, true God, whose character,
we testify is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” That is our faith—but
the stories are complex, and in the end, we are still grappling with mystery.
Of course, the flood story is only one piece of the huge, overarching
biblical narrative with all its miscellany of genres. We read Genesis 6-9, and
any other difficult passage, understanding that we are only looking at one
piece. Maybe, in that light, it would help on certain Sundays to revise our
liturgical response like this:
“This is the Word of the Lord.”
“Thanks be to God—for the full sweep of salvation history from which this terrifying text is only a fragment.”
Good luck getting a congregation to say that. I had a hard
enough time trying merely to gesture toward the idea in a twenty-minute classroom
discussion.
Nevertheless, “thanks be to God” is the right response to any portion of Scripture. God gave us the stories we are meant to have, and God expects us to ponder, grapple, cherish, resist, surrender, and let them shape our imaginations. That’s what I intend to do. What the rabbi says about the Torah, I would say about the whole Bible: “Turn it, and turn it, for everything is in it. Reflect on it and grow old and gray with it. Don’t turn from it, for nothing is better than it.”
Related
The Miracle of God’s Word
Proverbs 31:10
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.
The instructions from King Lemuel’s mother continue as she gives her son the wisdom of God. The first step in looking for a virtuous woman is to first have received proper instructions of which women to avoid. Wow! The flesh of sinful man will always go after that which is bad for him, but thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, that the born again men can have the wisdom of God and the Spirit of God to lead them.
The price of a virtuous woman, which refers to a woman of valor, one which is of any resources including strength, is FAR ABOVE rubies. To have a virtuous wife from the Lord is to have a good thing (Proverbs 18:22), and that good thing is FAR ABOVE any material earthly riches. The marriage of a Christian man and his wife are to express Christ and His relationship with His church in their relationship to all that know them (Ephesians 5). This will take place as both refuse to trust in anything other than Christ and what He did for them at the cross so that we can both be His bride (Romans 7:4).
Proverbs 31:11
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
The heart of a husband who can trust in his wife as the virtuous woman the Lord has made and called her to be for him, will have no need of spoil, which refers to gain outside of what she can provide as a good wife. Oh the joy of a man who has this virtuous woman. This woman is FAR ABOVE all earthly treasures, because she causes the heart of her husband to safely trust in her as the wife God has given him.
As we look at the relationship Christ desires to have with His church, we see there the example for all marriages. Men are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it (Ephesians 5:25), and the wives are told to submit to their own husbands as unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22-24). The virtuous woman is to be the woman the man searches for, and when he finds her, his heart will rejoice as to the gift of the Lord. We as the children of God are to be the virtuous bride of Christ to bring forth the fruit of our relationship with Him (Romans 7:4). Faith in the cross of Jesus Christ will allow the Holy Spirit to legally carry out the wonderful will of our Heavenly Father in our lives.
Proverbs 31:12
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
The virtuous woman the man should be looking for is described here in this portion of Scripture, and should be his criteria for a wife, and it should also be the criteria for the woman to be for her husband. I think we should realize that far beyond the natural picture here, we should be seeing that overall, this is a picture of what Christ came to give His Life for. A bride that is virtuous, serving only Him, and that can carry out His plan in the earth today.
As we are being changed and transformed by the Holy Spirit through faith in the cross of Christ, for there is no other way, we will find ourselves more in love with our Husband (Romans 7:4), and bringing forth the fruit of our virtuous relationship! Praise the Lord for His wondrous cross in that He offered Himself for us so that He could be ours forever and forever!
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