The questions that were asked earlier about the wish-prayers must now be addressed to the individual prayer-reports: What new depth of meaning does the apostle add, in adapting a conventional epistolary formula to his own purposes? And how much evidence is there that he used each prayer-report to express the concerns that were the specific occasion for the letter? We shall start with seven prayer-reports in the thanks-giving periods, following later with the less formal ones in the body of the letter to Romans and the two to Corinth.

THESSALONIANS 1: 2b–3

We begin with two prayer-reports at the opening and close of the thanks-giving section of I Thessalonians. The first one reads as follows:

The purpose of this prayer-report may first be assessed through its location in a uniquely long thanksgiving (chaps. 1–3). The thanks-giving in I Thessalonians not only announces the main subject matter of the letter, but actually develops it in extenso, in its positive and negative aspects. Within this broad literary context the first prayer-report (1: 2b–3) prepares the way for a gradual unfolding throughout the thanks-giving of all the reasons for Paul's gratitude and anxious praying. Indeed this advance prayer-summary shades off naturally by means of the participial phrase ειδóτεζ, κτγ.