He sheds new light upon the controversial passages in Paul on the role of women, the significance of Judaism, and the place for moral law in the plan of salvation. He compares the second hand accounts of Luke in Acts with the first hand accounts of Paul himself in his letters and demonstrates how these perspectives can contradict or complement one another.
Throughout the presentation, Murphy O’Conner stresses the role of the loving communities, their freedom and need to figure things out on their own. He shows Paul’s need to gain support from the larger Christian community so that his own work could be acknowledged and built upon. He demonstrates how Paul especially tried to win over the Roman community by his letter and why Paul so desperately needed that community’s acknowledgement of his ministry.
Perhaps, the most poignant parts of this presentation of Paul’s life have to do with his failures and that of his contemporaries. He speculates on Paul’s visit to Spain, the “ends of the earth”, and why that effort failed. This brings to life the human Paul and makes it easy for the listener to actually love the man who did so much for the community of believers.
8 Audio CDs 8 1/2 hours. With Outline.
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