Review: What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity

What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity by N.T. Wright

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have only read a few of Wright's book so far, but this one stands out as one of the better ones I have read. I am always impressed by the tidbits he gives that get to the cultural and historical root of the subject, and he is loaded with them here.


To view Paul as some kind of heavily influenced teacher of things Hellenistic will guide you down the entire wrong path of understanding every time. I jumped into this book because of how highly it was spoken of by Scot McKnight in his book [b:The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited|12279839|The King Jesus Gospel The Original Good News Revisited|Scot McKnight|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Y-wttR1ZL._SL75_.jpg|17255709] which I found very enlightening. I was not disappointed.

The gospel message has truly been redefined and basically truncated from what it started as. In a nutshell, the gospel message is about the whole story of Israel and how all the promises and blessings come to us through Christ Jesus. When we look at the "gospel" as solely a message of personal/individual salvation (which is an end result included) - a we make the gospel nothing more than a piece of a story that has a limited overall affect in the long term discipleship of believers. The full orbed gospel story needs to be rediscovered and applied in ways long lost by the church.

Aside from that, this book provides a look at many of the writings of Paul and his view on justification, righteousness and more, and provides a good example of just how much historical understanding most church goers are totally ignorant of, and how it greatly affects the understanding of key scriptural passages. I won't say I can agree with everything espoused here, but the greater majority of the book is excellent in my opinion.

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