I. Thanksgiving And Prayer (1:1-12)
I. THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER (1:1-12)
Paul’s second letter to the believers in Thessalonica appears to have followed hard on the heels of the first one, since each of the three issues addressed here is picked up in some way or another from the first letter. Moreover, the two major items in this case — the coming of the Lord and the unruly-idle — are now spoken to by a somewhat aggrieved apostle in an expanded form (2:1- 12; 3:6-13). The third item, addressed more indirectly in the first letter, deals with the believers’ present persecution at the hands of fellow citizens in Thessalonica. In this letter it is the first thing up, as the major item in the opening thanksgiving (1:6-10).
Also similar to the first letter is the way that the first item Paul addresses flows directly out of the thanksgiving so as to defy neat packaging on our part.728 In both letters Paul thus moves somewhat imperceptibly from his thanksgiving into the first area of concern that he carries for these (still new) believers. The thanksgiving is then followed, in what will also become typical of his later letters, by a report as to how he prays for them (1:11-12), a prayer which also anticipates concerns in the letter itself.729