Thanksgiving – Quiet Time Scriptures for November 2020

Twenty scriptures on thanksgiving for your haverim or quiet times.

Our morning men’s haverim group is focusing on thanksgiving during the month of November, 2020. More information about haverim study groups is available here, but, briefly, our haverim is a “group of friends” (that’s what the word means) that meet together every weekday morning, Monday to Friday, from 8:00 am to 8:30 am to read a passage of scripture, talk about it then pray.

Thanksgiving seemed an appropriate subject, not only because November is the month that the Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated in the United States, but also because giving thanks is just what we need right now. In 2020, we’ve faced issues including coronavirus, social injustice, and politics leading up to the Presidential election, also incidentally in November. With so many issues to drag us down, we may need some reminding that we have much to be thankful for: our families, our brothers and sisters in our church family, our great and glorious God… just to name a few.

If you’d like to join us in studying out what the Bible has to say about thanksgiving, an outline of the scriptures we’re using is here. The outline provides a daily scripture for the first four weeks of November. Scriptures aren’t provided for Saturdays or Sundays, or the last day of the month. On those days, I recommend reviewing your thoughts on the week’s scriptures, finding new ones on thanksgiving, or continuing your study of other areas. You could also use those times to review lessons that your congregation’s leaders are preaching on Sundays. (In the Hampton Roads Church, we’re in the middle of a series on the book of Hebrews.)

The Thanksgiving outline provides five scriptures each for four different themes: Old Testament examples, Psalms of praise and thanksgiving, New Testament scriptures and Psalms that include the phrase “Give thanks to the Lord… His love endures forever”. The Old Testament and Psalm scriptures all contain the Hebrew words for praise or thanksgiving, yada or toda, and if you have a Bible with Strong’s numbers or another similar resource, you should be able to find many other examples. Likewise, the New Testament verses all contain the Greek word eucharistia, which is often translated as “thanksgiving”. You can easily find other places where New Testament authors talk about giving thanks or thanking God for others, but Week 4 has some good examples.

If you plan to use the outline, let me know. Please enter a comment below and let me know what you’re learning!