Many postmodern readers of the Bible are drawn to Jesus's message and ministry, but they are not as positively inclined toward Paul. What should people to whom Jesus' teaching resonates deeply respond to Paul with whom they often find difficulty reconciling to Jesus do? What has Jesus to do with Paul?
Here Pauline scholar J. R. Daniel Kirk offers a fresh and timely engagement using categories such as 'deconstruction' and 'narrative' to reconstruct the relationship between Paul's writings and the portrait of Jesus contained in the Gospels in a way that biblically faithful but not cognitively reductionist.
Kirk integrates the messages of Jesus and Paul both with one another and with the Old Testament, demonstrating the continuity that exists between these two foundational figures. After laying out the narrative contours of the Christian life, Kirk provides fresh perspective on challenging issues facing today's world, from environmental concerns to social justice to homosexuality.
