Paul: In Fresh Perspective

N T Wright has a great writing style that is lucid, insightful and informative. Scholar and student both, can read his books and not be overwhelmed by technical jargon and vocabulary. He brings his great insight into Paul to light in this book that everyone who will attempt to get a grasp on Paul will need to start here (after the Bible of course).Wright begins by discussing the three worlds of Paul, which were Jewish (this one was foundational), Roman, and Greek. Wright shows how that Paul works out the fulfillment of Israel in Jesus and that being true Israel means that one has put their hope and faith in Jesus and not the Law or Temple. Wright carries this thread throughout his discussion on Paul.The book has two parts. Part one is themes and they include Creation and Covenant, Messiah and Apocalyptic, Gospel and Empire. Part two is structures and the structures he sees are entitled rethinking God, reworking God's people, reimagining God's future, and then the conclusion, which he has called Jesus, Paul and the Task of the Church.In Creation and Covenant Wright works out the idea that God created man, man then got himself in a mess through the fall and then God acts to restore his creation through covenant. Abraham and his seed were give the vocation of restoring what Adam had lost by being light to the world. The problem, as Wright so rightly points out, was that the solution (Abraham or Israel) became part of the problem, precisely because the Law was not equipped to change humanity. In the end Jew and Gentile stand unrestored and sinful and in need of redemption.In the section Messiah and Apocalyptic, Wright shows that Jesus as Israel's true representative has accomplished for humanity what the nation of Israel had failed to accomplished. For Paul the plan of God for Israel had been unveiled and Jesus was the plan all along. God had vindicated the Messiah (Israel's true representative) by resurrecting him from the dead.The message of Gospel and empire was the proclamation that Israel's Messiah has become Lord of the world. The message is a threat to Caesar, because Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.In the second part of the book under Structures Wright speaks of rethinking God and particularly monotheism in light of the person of Jesus. Wright maintains the traditional orthodox view of the divinity of Jesus (nothing to fear here despite what some have said about Wright on this subject), but he holds this in tension with Jewish monotheism. In this same section Wright holds that Paul does not proof text when quoting scripture (the Old Testament), as Sanders suggests, but that Paul takes the full context of the passage into consideration and Wright insists that Paul's message holds continuity with the overall narrative of Israel. I am suggesting the Wright is right on this and that Wright has effectively torn down not only the old liberal or moderate views on this, but the conservative views from the old perspective as well.In the section on Reworking God's People Wright covers the topic of election. He does not speak of election here in the old Calvinistic perspective, but that God has elected Jesus as Israel's true representative and that they that are in the Messiah are therefore in the elect. If you miss what Wright is saying here then you will miss what is perhaps his biggest contribution and that is that God's people are constituted around faith in Jesus and not circumcision, the Torah, Land, or Temple. He suggests that Paul has reworked God's people around the Messiah and the Spirit. In other words it is no longer the Temple made by hands that the Spirit or presence of God dwells but now in the Temple of believers in the Messiah (Jesus) and it is no longer the Torah that guides the life of Israel, but the Spirit that is to be walked in and the its members are to be led by.In the section reimagining God's future Wright sees Paul's central point being; God has done in Jesus in the middle of time what normal Jewish expectations thought would happen at the end of time. Jesus has fulfilled the promises of Abraham and David and has brought to an end Jewish eschatological expectations at the cross, resurrections and negatively in 70 AD at the destruction of the Temple. Now an Israel has been reconstituted, humanity has been redeemed and now the future of all of creation is in process as the gospel is preached and the Church or new Israel models the new humanity to the world through living in the Spirit.The book concludes with a final chapter on Jesus, Paul and the task of the Church. There is much to be interested in that Wright says here, but what I found interesting was his discussion of how Paul sees his own vocation as being the instrument of living out the vocation of light of the world that began in Jesus, but was being lived out in Paul as he carried the message to the Gentiles. It seems that Wright sees the role of the Church (the new Israel) as still being the same as it was for Paul. The task of the Church is to carry the message that exile has ended, a new and true humanity has been constituted, Jesus is Lord and is to be worshipped against all of the other claims of worship in this world.What does this book mean? In my opinion it means that much of the current preaching from the so-called Christian Zionist perspective is false. This has not been Wrights push, but he accomplishes pointing the way out of the error of this message. It also puts to rest the Old Perspective. Wright points out and deals with justification as God vindicating the people who have put faith in Jesus as Messiah. Justification for Wright is not how to get to heaven, but is the declaration that the whoever answers the call to put faith in Jesus, that one God has and will vindicate. Wright does such a good job here that it is dificult to see how the old perspective can be revived. His case is too good to be ignored. If you are interested in getting at the heart of the gospel message in Paul and in Jesus then get this book.Questions or comments contact me at [email protected]

NT Wright has two kinds of primary writing that I am aware of- the scholarly tomes debating and explaining nuances of his theological positions to other academics (such as Jesus and the Victory of God) and the short but complete books meant for summary and concision of a topic for use by pastors and lay people (such as Simply Christian). When I first got my paperback of "Paul: In Fresh Perspective" I assumed it would be a book in the second style- pastoral, easily read and without the dense pressure of theological details. I was right, and wrong.In this book, Wright definitely is aiming to speak concisely and clearly about a deeply complex set of issues. And in that, the author succeeds marvelously. The book is easy to follow, well structured and moves clearly from point to point, in a building progression. But the book does not "boil down" the points of Pauline theology into a few clichéd notes. Instead Wright grasps with the breadth of not just our perspectives, but with Paul's. In doing so he turns the understanding of Paul's theology away from our context and into Paul's 1st century, monotheistic, Jewish worldview intersecting with the Greek philosophical underpinnings which were itself pounding its ideologies onto the imperial Roman world.Wright compresses Paul's world into seventeen deft pages of introduction that orients the reader for the journey to discovering- what was Paul really saying about Jesus, the Spirit, Israel, salvation and God. It would be hard to stack together a work that collapses so many controversial theological pivot points as Wright has done here. But he has done it, and done it without sounding defensive, contradictory or condescending. More than that- he has done it convincingly.The meat of the book is divided into two main parts. The first part deals primarily with the themes that Wright sees in both Paul and the first century Jewish world- creation & covenant, Messiah and apocalyptic, and gospel and empire. Wright lays these themes out for us to grasp the narrative into which Jesus came and from which Paul is now speaking.The second part of the book deals with resultant conclusions that the work of Jesus now makes within the context of the themes discussed in the previous section. Wright paints the "fresh perspective" across the primary topics of God (monotheism), God's people (election), and God's future (eschatology). The author wraps up this section by looking pointedly at Paul's personal and specific work, and some specific theological hot-points that Wright moves to clarify via more redefinitions of context.In both of these sections Wright is taking on the task of, as he puts it, thinking Paul's thoughts after him. This is important to realize as a major mechanism employed by the author because the primary assumption he starts with on all of Paul's work (on every subject Paul presents) is that the apostle himself is actually redefining all of the major components of the Jewish theology and narrative around their fulfillment in and through the work of Jesus, his life, vocation, death on the cross and resurrection. The entire force of Wright's arguments are based on his belief that Paul was taking his Jewish monotheistic narrative, redefining it in Jesus as the Christ, and representing it to both Jews and Gentiles alike who found themselves within the context of the Hellenistic world of Roman imperialism.For example, a snapshot of this is his statement that God was becoming king in the person of Jesus, and the impact of this on the new people of God (the church) meant that Jesus was now king and not Caesar. The shock waves of these kinds of statements are expounded in the Pauline context and purposefully extirpated from our own. The intersection of culture, politics, and religion that we would segment in the 21st century is brought to light as an inappropriate revisionist viewpoint founded in our modern enlightenment worldview. Wright is careful to return to such nuances when necessary, hoping to remind the reader that Paul (and his 1st century world) would not have seen these things the way we do, and thus we must read Paul with his lenses on, not ours. My review would be in danger of becoming more lengthy than the source being reviewed if I tried to quote and support in any level of detail, but perhaps this will whet your appetite to dig into this breathtaking work by this brilliant scholar.After having read a few other of Wright's books, I was surprised at how short, yet dense this book was. At about 175 pages, this book holds a profound amount of content. In fact, I am now on my fifth reading of the book in the last 12 days, simply because it took me that many repetitions to draw out some of the details, only after I could hold together the main points after a couple of readings. Each page, each paragraph is thick with explanation and exploration. Yet, it is not written as a cryptic scholarly "thesis" with a standard 30% footnote margin at the bottom. This book is very readable, and the words do not require a dictionary to read. But Wright has written this book so well, so densely that it does require digestion time- or like me, re-reading multiple times.Of interest to the "Pauline" debaters and scholars is Wright's approach to the doctrine of "justification". I would only say this- if you haven't actually read this book, please don't try to attack its premise on this topic. I understand the desire for many to do so, since the point of justification by faith is so seminal to reformed theology and does (by some accounts) go back as far as Augustine. Wright's keen mind, his work as a historian and his equal desire to translate the 1st century message for our 21st century minds in a way that would allow us to understand his theories make all of this possible and accessible even if juxtaposed to what we've been polarized to believe.An excellent book, incredibly well-written, with powerful (and fresh) perspectives on key Christian thinking.

This was Wright's follow up to  What Saint Paul Really Said . While some of the topics covered broadly cover the same ground, this is a very different book which incorporates and references quite a bit of Wright's other writings (excluding his New Testament For Everyone series). As such, if you are new to Wright, I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point.The first half of the book looks at the background setting into which Paul's theology was born. These are outlined in some detail (but not exhaustively, as Wright is keen to emphasize) under the titles `Creation and Covenant', `Messiah and Apocalyptic' and `Gospel and Empire'. The first of these echoes What St Paul Really Said the most, with Wright's view on the New Perspective movement being that when references are made to the history of Israel that Paul had the whole sweep of that history in mind. So a reference to the Exodus necessarily entails a knowledge and understanding of all the nuances and symbolism that entails.This is a very interesting view which is fairly persuasive, yet not compelling. For example, the painting of the Forth Road Bridge was sometimes referred to as a Sisyphean task, yet I think this only refers to the part of the myth of Sisyphus which relates to his rolling the stone up the hill repeatedly, not necessarily the backstory as to how he ended up there. So it might be with Paul's references to the Jewish theologies of monotheism, creation and covenant.In `Messiah and Apocalyptic' Wright redefines these terms of how he thinks Paul understood them, which may be quite different to modern usage. So one is referred strongly back to  The New Testament and the People of God: 1 (Christian Origins & Ques God 1)  for detail on `Apocalyptic' and to  Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God: v. 2 (Christian Origins & the Question of God)  for detail on `Messiah'.In Gospel and Empire, Wright looks at the royal proclamation element of the gospel for which he has been noted, not least in Jesus and the Victory of God and, more recently, in  How God Became King - Getting to the heart of the Gospels . So if you have read either of those, there will be little new here, but it's needed for completeness.The second half of the book gets into some of the real meat of the argument, although it is clear (and Wright acknowledges this) that this is a condensed line of reasoning, with much that either has been expanded upon elsewhere or will be expanded upon later. As such, I would warn potential readers of the book that even though it is less than 200 pages long, the content is very dense. If you gloss over a sentence, you will lose the thread. Also, Wright refers to some quite extensive passages of scripture without providing the reader much by way of including it. So have a bible to hand.Much of the point of view that Wright expresses is dependent upon his translation. I'm no expert in Greek so I could not help but wonder if his translation was influenced by his theology and not the other way around. While I intend to read some of the detractors to the `new perspective' movement, I would be surprised if a similar point is not raised.The most contentious chapter, by some way, is `Reworking God's People' where Wright looks at the doctrines of election and `justification by faith'. He brings to the readers' attention some of the passages of New Testament which many churches will tend to view only out of the corner of their eyes. While Romans 8 may be a favourite passage for many, chapters 9-11 of the same book may not be. He similarly notes that proponents of the New Perspective love the 2nd half of Ephesians 2, while its detractors like to focus more on the first half of the chapter.Wright tries to steer round this debate by saying that the approach needed is one that is all-encompassing. There ought to not be an either/or discussion, but rather a both/and way of viewing these doctrines. After all, if Paul put these next to one another in his own writings, it's unlikely he intended to be being self-contradictory.The image that was cast in my head was that of a die. You cannot see all of its faces at once. Traditional theology has been entranced by looking at the six and catching an askew glance at some of the other faces, while others remain out of side, either on the opposite side, or face down on the table. Wright wants us to pick up the die and turn it over in our hands, looking at every side. For some, this may mean losing sight temporarily of the view they have grown up with and loved for many years. But Wright is not advocating throwing away any aspects of traditional theology. Instead, he wishes to cast a new light on it. But, to mix my metaphors, adding light can also cast a shadow elsewhere. So while the idea of justification by faith has been core to much reformed theology, the point put forward is that it is has been partially misunderstood and is also part of a bigger picture.In writing this, Wright did not set out to answer all questions about Paul and give an holistic account of his theology. Instead, this book should be taken as a thought-provoker, inviting the reader to re-examine Paul for themselves and to go further down the pathways which Wright has sketched out. It's not an easy read, but it's not impenetrable either. So, with due caution, proceed, learn and think. What Saint Paul Really SaidThe New Testament and the People of God: 1 (Christian Origins & Ques God 1)Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God: v. 2 (Christian Origins & the Question of God)How God Became King - Getting to the heart of the Gospels

A clear and easy to understand review of the fresh perspectives on St Paul that has arrived in the theological consciousness since the second world war. People may disagree with Paul to find that it was only a stereo type they were disagreeing with and not really the man he was.To understand Paul in the light of this fresh perspective helps us to understand his thought and his theology. To understand that he was a Roman Citizen, a Jew and a Christian at the same time helps us to see what he meant and how his original hearers are likely to have understood him. Tom Wright enables the reader to enter Paul's world and gain a deeper understanding of the letters he wrote and why which make up a considerable part of the New Testament. It is also refreshing to hear a scholar to argue that Paul wrote some of the letters that traditionally believers say he wrote but which scholars have previously argued that he didn't.

In placing Paul and his thought firmly in the context of the Old Testament and 1st Century Jewish thinking, Wright has - in my view - absolutely nailed the man's theology. His views will be controversial in some circles, but for me this is the definitive book on Paul's theology and how it fits into scripture. Highly recommended

I found this easy to read but had to keep going back to take in the ideas that were coming at me thick and fast out of it. Everyone should read this who is studying Paul - it not only opened up a whole new world for me of thought but left me thinking - I really have found the real basis for my life in Christ Jesus

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