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A Bird's-Eye View of Paul: The man, his mission & his message

Reviewed by Christopher Palmer.

This introduction to Paul covers his life, letters, theology and ethics. It is written from an evangelical reformed perspective for laypeople, undergraduates, and ministers.

A strong feature is the clarity of writing and presentation, which makes an intelligent and approachable account.  Bird’s description of the “stories lurking beneath the text”, his overview of Paul’s letters, and his explanation of Paul’s Christology are particularly enlightening. He takes account of the so-called ‘new perspective’ on Paul, and consequently he roots Paul in his Jewish context well. He uses illustrations which would be at home in a homiletical setting to help the reader grasp his ideas. For example, the likening of Adam and Christ to Anakin and Luke Skywalker respectively is illuminating!  For the preacher who struggles to explain Paul to congregations, this book will be especially useful.

The book comes from a conservative stable and its interaction with scholarship outside this tradition is limited. Bird dismisses the case against Pauline authorship of the Pastoral and other Epistles in a footnote. His Reformed credentials are displayed in the chapter on the cross, where he defends penal substitution, imputed righteousness, and interpreting the cross as an act of propitiation.  A weakness is his limited attention to Paul’s theology of the Holy Spirit. Although there are frequent references to the Spirit, it is only in a brief passage on Paul’s ethics that the Spirit receives fuller (but still inadequate) treatment.