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A review by ddejong
Paul: A Biography by N.T. Wright
4.0
3.5 stars- mainly for being unnecessarily repetitive. I encountered this with the other NT Wright book I read a couple years ago. He is a brilliant mind and I greatly respect him, but I can sometimes feel like I’m slogging through his books because of the repetition. There is no special revelatory biographical material on Paul outside of Scripture so NT Wright has more or less taken the details available to us in Acts and in his letters, spread them out chronologically, teased out the major themes of Paul’s mission and theology, and incorporated relevant ancient history/culture/politics. He is focused on trying to draw out what made Paul tick and what made his influence so tremendous. Some of the major themes Wright emphasizes throughout:
- Paul never stopped being a Jew or “converted” to Christianity. He saw Jesus as the fulfillment of everything the law and the prophets were pointing toward, and his lifelong Jewish identity is critical for understand him.
- He was intensely focused on teaching young church communities how to think— how to have the mind of Christ. He could never teach them everything he wanted to but if they learned to have the mind of the Messiah, the rest would follow.
- Paul was not concerned with “how to get to heaven.” This is an anachronistic concept that was not top of mind for him and his contemporaries. Heaven was not “up there” but rather another sphere of existence; in Jesus, God was fulfilling his promises to bring the heavenly realm to earth and unite them.
- He was very focused on unity because of the dangerous fault lines between Jewish and Gentile believers. There were constant efforts to erase the Jewish foundations of the gospel and, on the other side, to insist that Gentiles who were not following the Torah or getting circumcised could not be part of the family of faith. Paul was vehemently against both of these reactions and opposed them throughout his ministry.
- Paul never stopped being a Jew or “converted” to Christianity. He saw Jesus as the fulfillment of everything the law and the prophets were pointing toward, and his lifelong Jewish identity is critical for understand him.
- He was intensely focused on teaching young church communities how to think— how to have the mind of Christ. He could never teach them everything he wanted to but if they learned to have the mind of the Messiah, the rest would follow.
- Paul was not concerned with “how to get to heaven.” This is an anachronistic concept that was not top of mind for him and his contemporaries. Heaven was not “up there” but rather another sphere of existence; in Jesus, God was fulfilling his promises to bring the heavenly realm to earth and unite them.
- He was very focused on unity because of the dangerous fault lines between Jewish and Gentile believers. There were constant efforts to erase the Jewish foundations of the gospel and, on the other side, to insist that Gentiles who were not following the Torah or getting circumcised could not be part of the family of faith. Paul was vehemently against both of these reactions and opposed them throughout his ministry.