Interpreting the Pauline Epistles Paperback – Illustrated, May 1, 2011

I am a seminary student in my last year of study and this has been one of the best books I have read.If you don't know what Bible arcing is, buy this book.If you don't have a really clear process of biblical interpretation, but this book. It will help you.

This book was a requirement for a class on Pauline writing. I honestly think it is one of the most well written books on understanding Paul. He clearly guides you in not only exegetical processes, but gives insight as to why it is so crucial to truly study Paul's work well.The main take home points for anyone trying to read Paul, with or without intending to do a lengthy study:*Paul's letters were written for a specific church about specific topics that directly influenced that church. Each letter needs to be read as such.*To understand Paul's theology or whole perspective of what the Christian life looks like, you have to take in his different writings as a whole. To explain, Paul wrote sternly and pertaining to the law to the Corinthians because they needed to be roped in, so to speak. Whereas, in his letter to the Galatians he focuses more on the freedoms in Christ because they held more tightly to the law.*Also, one of the most important points made, was that if we believe the bible to be the word of God, and that He is not limited to a time or place or culture, and that He speaks only truth, then we must conclude that the Bible is also the same. Therefore there are not contradictions nor cultural irrelevancies within the Bible.So it is Schreiner's main point, that when we interpret Paul's letters, we have to focus on understanding the context in which he spoke, and find the harmony between the passages, and continue to edify and build or knowledge of his words to truly grasp the truths God has spoken through Paul.It was an easy and great read and anyone who wants to understand Paul should read it.

Thomas Schreiner has written a great handbook on exegeting Paul's epistles. I recommend this book to be used as a handy handbook and not just read through. One's exegesis of Paul will be enriched by this volume.

This is an excellent resource for those interested in digging into the New Testament. It is a small book and not intended to be exhaustive but in its 167 pages of very readable print it covers a great deal. For example, chapter 5 covers "diagramming and conducting a grammatical analysis"; I love this chapter! In less than 20 pages Schreiner teaches nearly everything one might wish to know about understanding the sentence structure and function of the words in the sentence by building a "blueprint" of the sentence by dissecting and rebuilding it with "stick" diagrams.On the other hand I got very little out of chapter 6 (the reason I did not give the book 5 stars). Its 30 pages are devoted to "tracing the argument" primarily through "arcing", a weak-sistered system of analysis that falls quite short of the system taught in chapter 5.Each of its nine chapters has helpful references for the student who might want to further their studies in a particular area.One caution though, the reader should have some basic understanding of ancient Greek or the book will be of diminished value.

Bought it for a class I was taking and it was more affordable than the bookstore that was local

The best on exegesis with examples on pages 80-94. It is academic, biblical and practical and yet easy to follow & understand. I've included it in my list of literature for my doctoral Thesis.

This is not only a great book on Paul's Epistles, it deals with the fundamentals of how to adequately provide the exposition of any NT book.

Great book on interpreting Paul. The summary on arcing alone is worth the price of the book.

I think I'll hang on to it, and probably ask some of my young friends who are students of the Bible if they are interested. I don't really understand the purpose of this book. It is written in tiny typeface, and contains a lot of technical detail which will not mean a lot to the general reader, but which any serious Bible scholar should know anyway. If you don't know koiné Greek whole chunks of the book will be meaningless, and if you do, you know how to parse a Greek sentence, or at least you should.As you can tell, I was disappointed, but there is bound to be some good stuff in there if you look for it