A Preface to Paul

Most readers of the New Testament have a clearly defined attitude towards the Apostle Paul, and frequently it is a negative one. In many instances, their opinion is based upon a combination of misunderstanding, prejudice, and a failure to recognize that Paul wrote for an age very different from our own. We naturally tend to interpret Paul from our own standpoint, forgetting that the situation of the early Christian community was totally unlike that of Christians today. The result is that Paul is not allowed to speak for himself, but is expected to answer our questions--and blamed when he fails to do so to our satisfaction. This introduction to the Church's first great theologian does not attempt to produce a systematic account of his theology. Indeed, it begins from the recognition that such an attempt is impossible: all we have on which to base our reconstruction of Paul's thought is part of his correspondence with some of his churches, and usually we have to guess at what these letters presuppose. All too often, readers of Paul make the mistake of treating the Pauline material as a corpus of teaching, comprehensive in its range and timeless in its relevance. 'A Preface to Paul' attempts to show that we distort Paul's meaning when we treat him in this way, but that by trying to put ourselves imaginatively into his situation we can begin to understand how the Apostle's thought can still be relevant to us today.