Prayers of Thanksgiving From Paul’s Letters

On this page: What Paul thanked God for · How to pray them · Ephesians · Philippians · Colossians · 1 Thessalonians · The tenth · At the table

What did Paul give thanks for in his letters?

Paul gave thanks for people more than for things. He thanked God for a church’s faith, love and hope (1 Thessalonians 1:3), for friends who shared his work “from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:5), for rescue from darkness (Colossians 1:13) and, above all, for Christ, God’s “unspeakable gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

Thanks is how Paul starts. In most of his letters, right after the greeting, comes a line like “I thank my God whenever I remember you.” Galatians is the clear exception: there he skips the thanks and goes straight to “I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you” (Galatians 1:6). The missing thank-you is how readers know he is upset.

The Greek verb he uses, eucharisteō, “to give thanks,” is the root of a word Christians still use every Sunday. The Eucharist takes its name from the Greek eucharistia, “thanksgiving,” as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes.

Much of this thanking was learned in hard places. Paul spent about three years in Ephesus (Acts 20:31), where a riot over his preaching filled the great theater (Acts 19:29). From Ephesus he wrote 1 Corinthians (“I will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost,” 16:8), and its long chapter on the resurrection ends with a shout of thanks: “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (15:57).

How to pray these prayers of thanksgiving from Paul

Each of the ten has three parts: Paul’s own words in the World English Bible (a public-domain translation), one line on what he was thankful for, and a short prayer you can say today. Read the verse, then pray the prayer. Where it says “them,” say a name.

• At the Thanksgiving table: give each person one number and go around before the meal. Ten readers take about five minutes.
• As a ten-day practice: one prayer a day from 17 to 26 November ends on Thanksgiving Day itself.
• To send: copy one into a message to the person it is about. “I thanked God for you today” is often the whole point.

Ephesians: thanks that does not stop

1. For the people you love (Ephesians 1:16)

Before Paul asks anything for the Ephesians, he tells them he cannot stop thanking God for them. The request that follows is the first of Paul’s prayers in Ephesians, which we pray line by line on its own page. Here, keep only the thanks.

Pray it: Father, I cannot stop thanking you for the people at this table, and for the ones who are missing from it. I name them now before you.

2. Grace before the meal (Ephesians 5:20)

The verse sits in a passage about songs and shared worship (5:18–20). “All things” includes the food, the hands that cooked it and the ordinary day it ends.

Pray it: Father, in the name of Jesus we thank you for all things: this food, the hands that made it, and the day you gave us. Amen.

Philippians: thanks for partners and for peace

The church at Philippi, in northern Greece, began by a river. Acts tells how Paul spoke to women gathered for prayer outside the city gate, and a businesswoman named Lydia was baptized with her household (Acts 16:13–15). Years later Paul wrote to that church from prison. Scholars still debate which prison; the USCCB introduction to Philippians notes that much recent scholarship favors Ephesus, around AD 55. It is the warmest letter he wrote.

3. For friends who stayed (Philippians 1:3–6)

Paul thanks God for partnership: people who stood with him from the start and were still there. It is the right verse for an old friend, a spouse or a sponsor at church.

Pray it: I thank you, my God, every time I remember them. Thank you for their faithfulness from the first day until now. Finish the good work you began in them.

4. For peace in an anxious year (Philippians 4:6–7)

Notice where the thanks comes: in the middle of the worry, not after it is solved. Paul attaches thanksgiving to every request.

Pray it: Lord, here is what worries me, and here is my thanks anyway. Guard my heart and my thoughts with a peace I cannot explain.

Colossians: thanks three times in one short letter

Colossae was a town in the Lycus valley, inland from Ephesus. Paul had never been there; the church was founded by Epaphras (Colossians 1:7), probably during the years when, from Ephesus, “all those who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:10). In four short chapters Paul gives thanks, or tells his readers to, again and again. Three of those moments follow.

5. For faith, love and hope (Colossians 1:3–5)

Paul thanks God for people he had only heard about. You can do the same for a missionary, a stranger’s church in the news or a family you sponsor.

Pray it: Father, thank you for the faith and love of people I have never met. Keep their hope safe in heaven, and mine with it.

6. For being brought out of the dark (Colossians 1:12–13)

This is thanks for a rescue. It suits a baptism, a recovery, or the first Thanksgiving after a year you did not think you would get through.

Pray it: Thank you, Father, for bringing us out of the dark. This year we sit at the table in your light.

7. For ordinary work (Colossians 3:15–17)

“Be thankful” is a command, not a mood. Paul ties it to whatever you do: the shift, the dishes, the drive home.

Pray it: Lord Jesus, let your peace rule in this house. Whatever we do tomorrow, at work or at home, let us do it with thanks.

1 Thessalonians: thanks in a hard year

Paul had to leave Thessalonica in a hurry (Acts 17:10), and wrote this letter from Corinth after Timothy brought news of the young church, probably in AD 51. Many scholars think it is the oldest of his letters to survive. It is full of thanks for people under pressure.

8. For people who serve (1 Thessalonians 1:2–3)

Work, labor, perseverance: Paul thanks God for effort. On Thanksgiving Day that means the nurse on shift, the volunteer serving meals and whoever cooked today.

Pray it: We thank you for everyone working while we eat: their work of faith, their labor of love, their patience. Bless them tonight.

9. For the year as it really was (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)

Read it closely: in everything, not for everything. Paul does not ask anyone to be thankful for a diagnosis or a funeral. He asks for thanks to keep going inside them. These are the shortest verses here, and the easiest for children to learn.

Pray it: Lord, not everything this year was good, but you were in all of it. In everything, we give you thanks.

The tenth: thanks for the gift

10. For Jesus, and a thank-you to share (2 Corinthians 9:15)

Paul ends a long section about a collection for the poor in Jerusalem with this one line. Every gift in the chapter points back to the gift that cannot be put into words.

Pray it: Thank you, God, for your gift too great for words. Make us generous with everything you have given us.

Thanks can be sent as well as said. Most notes on the wishing wall at the House of Virgin Mary near Ephesus ask for something; some only say thank you. If an answered prayer, a recovery or a good year is on your heart, write one line of thanks and send it to us. We will place it on the wall with the others, free of charge.

One prayer for the Thanksgiving table

If you only have a minute before the food gets cold, this prayer gathers the ten into one. It works for a table of two or twenty.

Mary’s own prayer of thanks, the Magnificat, is on our page of prayers to the Virgin Mary. If you would like a ready-made line of thanks to send, our prayer request examples include one.

Last reviewed October 2026. Bible text from the World English Bible (public domain); sources linked below.

Send a thank-you to Mary’s house

Paul wanted thanks to multiply, so that “thanks may be given by many persons” (2 Corinthians 1:11). That is what the wall above Ephesus holds: thousands of folded notes from people of every faith, most of them requests, some of them simply grateful. Our family places the prayers people send us on that wall on our regular visits to the house. Our guide on how to send a prayer request explains each step.