Paul for Everyone: Romans: Chapters 9-16 (for Everyone) [Paperback]

N. T. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2005 | Series: New Testament for Everyone

Writing in an approachable and anecdotal style, N.T. Wright helps us see the great sweep of this letter. Romans has long been viewed as the book above all in which Paul spells out the basic doctrines of the faith, and the picture of God's life for us. These helpful guides provide Wright's own translation of the letter as well as explanations, suggestions, and thoughts for how the biblical text can be relevant to our lives today. Easy to read and great for all sorts of settings and all sorts of readers-- Bible groups, personal devotions, young or old, clergy or layperson...for everyone!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

N.T. (Tom) Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. He is a prolific author and noted New Testament scholar, and was named by Christianity Today in 1999 as one of the top five theologians in the world. He has written over thirty books, both for scholars and for a popular audience. His two volumes on Romans are part of a larger series For Everyone, published in the United States by Westminster John Knox Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 161 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; 2 edition (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664229123
• ISBN-13: 978-0664229122
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

N.T. Wright is Bishop of Durham and was formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and dean of Lichfield Cathedral. He taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. Wright's full-scale works The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God are part of a projected six-volume series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God. Among his many other published works are The Original Jesus, What Saint Paul Really Said and The Climax of the Covenant. He is also coauthor with Marcus Borg of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions and the volume on Colossians and Philemon in The Tyndale New Testament Commentary series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Christian's Relationship with the Law, May 8, 2010

By 

D. S. Bornus (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part One (For Everyone) (Paperback)

For those unfamiliar with Wright's "______ for Everyone" series, they are a series of commentaries on the New Testament books by Bishop Wright based on his extensive historical scholarship. He provides his own translation (based on his study of the source languages) which is a very engaging paraphrase. The text is divided up into chronological topic-based segments, followed by a 2-3 page sermonette/commentary based on that section.

In this volume, which covers chapters 1-8 of Romans, Wright illuminates the complexities of Paul's discussion of how the law magnifies our sin, like a slide projector magnifies a tiny slide, and how these preliminary chapters illustrate the Jews' relationship with the law, and how Jesus fulfills the law. Our appropriation of Jesus' faithful fulfillment of the law is what constitutes "justification" - i.e. "being declared to be in the right" at the final judgment. Our confidence and trust in that future event is what constitutes "faith" in the present time, as this confidence and trust begins to shape our daily lives. Wright explains Paul's analogy of being in Christ as like a marriage - a legal status in which we learn to act in our new role, whether we "feel" married or different or not. What we are obedient to, whether obedience itself or to sin, reveals to whom we really belong.

Throughout, Wright reveals some interesting insights:
1. In first-century judicial procedure, it was customary to cover one's mouth when finished testifying - and if the authorities felt you were lying or babbling, they would "stop your mouth" for you - which is explains a reference to mouths being stopped in Rom. 3:9-20, as well as why the soldier struck Jesus in the mouth at his trial.

2. Rom. 2:29's reference to getting praise reveals that although Paul was writing in Greek he was thinking in Hebrew - Wright says that the reference to praise is tied in with the name for "Judah" in Hebrew meaning praise.

3. Wright makes a beautiful analogy of Rom. 8 as being like an opening rosebud, describing the "becauses" of the original language, like nesting dolls unfolding and showing us why there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and the fourfold "no one" to condemn, for which it ends. We stand, Wright says, like the woman taken in adultery (John 8), with "no one" to condemn as Jesus tells us to go and sin no more.

When you start reading this be sure to have Volume Two at hand as you will want to continue right on with it.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An indispensible guide for today's Christian, October 5, 2005

By 

Ian Brown "WelcomeWagon" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part One (For Everyone) (Paperback)

Wright's prose here is accessible, deceptively simple, and effective in delivering the age-old brand new story of Romans to a modern audience. The narrative of Pauline theology gets a fresh breath from under the clutter of excesses seen throughout Christian literature. Though not straying too far from the tree, Wright does shake things up. For those looking for a faithful, and yet disarming, take on Romans you need look no further.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dose of the "new perspective", June 19, 2009

By 

Aging Boomer (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part One (For Everyone) (Paperback)

N.T. Wright is, of course, an exponent of the "new perspective" on Paul. As one whose Christian faith is pretty deeply rooted in the "old" perspective, I approach Wright (known in my son's excellent Christian school as "N.T. Wrong") with some skepticism. He is, however, a believing Christian who has rescued Paul from the distortions of liberal scholars such as A.N. Wilson. His thought is not a product of that odd mix of circular reasoning and psychological projection that has passed for "higher" Biblical criticism in the West for 200 years. I am happy to report that this lay commentary can be read by an old perspectivist with pleasure and gratitude. Wright reopened by eyes and heart to two aspects of Romans that can too easily be forgotten by one steeped in the traditional reading: first, Romans is about how God's covenant with Israel is fulfilled and extended to all the peoples of the world by the death and resurrection of Christ the Messiah; second, Paul not only instructs us to be grateful for God's free grace in dealing with our sin through Christ, but also exhorts us to lead changed lives through the power of the Spirit. The traditional reader's "blessed assurance" can too easily become complacency, and one resting in justification by faith can too easily neglect the call, and the power, to turn from sin. I am not saying that Wright has converted me to the new perspective. I can't read Paul's text and believe that he is not talking about how an individual gets right with God, while at the same time explicating how the Gentiles can be admitted to the true "Israel". Indeed, I come away from Romans marvelling at how these two themes are harmonious and intertwined, two sides of the same proverbial coin. However, notwithstanding Wright, I am quite sure that the most important message of Romans is that our sin is imputed to Christ, and his righteousness to us, through God's free grace and our faith, whether we are Jew or Gentile. By wrongly insisting that the Greek word usually translated "righteousness" instead be translated as "covenant faithfulness" or "covenant justice" or some other "covenant" compound, he deprives Romans of its central message, which is aimed at the individual heart. This is a great error, one that directs a reader away from the true meaning of Romans, and potentially away from saving faith. Wright is unconvincing in other respects as well; the idea that the "I" in Romans 7 (unlike the "I" in Romans 6 and 8) is not Paul, but Israel, ignores both the text of Romans 7 itself and the seamless bridge it forms between chapters 6 and 8. In sum, Wright is well worth reading, but with this and all his books, the old adage applies with force: Take the best, leave the rest.