A response of grateful people toward a gracious God. In the OT, thanksgiving is conspicuously absent from the patriarchal narratives, where the characters often appear ungrateful. Thanksgiving appears in the Pentateuch only in Lev. 7:12–15, where thanksgiving is one kind of fellowship offering given in public worship, usually for deliverance from peril. Thanksgiving becomes a prominent exhortation in the Psalter, where it occurs over fifty times. Worshipers are encouraged to thank God (in public worship) for deliverance from the physical perils common to being outside the safety of one’s community (Ps. 107) and from perils within (Ps. 103). Later, prophets (Isa. 51:3; Jer. 30:19), the Chronicler (1 Chron. 23:30), and twenty-eight other psalms speak of thanksgivings by offering songs rather than sacrifices. Thanksgiving, however, is still in the context of public (cultic) worship.

Later Jewish literature expanded expressions of thanksgiving outside a sacrificial context to include the individual or family at home before each meal (b. Ber. 35a). Similarly, Jesus offers thanks before a meal (Matt. 15:36; 26:27).

The other major occurrences of thanksgiving in the NT are found in Paul’s letters. While Greco-Roman letters occasionally began with thanksgiving to a deity for providing health or safety, Paul offered far longer and more frequent thanksgivings than any known writer. Thanksgiving must be considered one of the distinguishing characteristics of Paul’s writings and teachings. Both OT and NT examples and teachings indicate that thanksgiving to God is expressed in front of others and not merely in silent individual prayers to God.