Ancient letters, like the one above, tended to have a rather stereotyped format or structure involving the following elements: (1) the name of the writer, (2) the name of the addressee, (3) the initial greeting, (4) the health wish or prayer, (5) the body of the letter, and (6) the conclusion.
To this skeletal structure of ancient letters, Paul added considerable flesh, modifying and adding to standard elements forms that suited his purpose. Paul’s letters were true surrogates for oral communication, and he made them exercises in rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion, to convict, convince, and convert his audience to his point of view.
