My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Tom Wright takes the reader through Galatians painstakingly interpreting it from his ‘fresh perspective’. On the whole I think his understanding brings light to a letter that see foreign and harsh. He is always to read, if rather exhausting.
Some caveats:
There is a lot of Wright here compared to Paul. To explicate the text there are long introductions to each section – Wright reworking the way we casually read Paul
Consequently it is almost impossible to ‘look up’ a verse, or get a quick view of a paragraph, there is so much introductory material.
At a key point he relies on Teresa Morgan’s understanding of ‘faith’, I do not know how accepted her work is. A large part of re-reading Galatians, away from classical ‘justification by faith’ depends on Morgan’s reading.
I am not sure if this is what the editors wanted to launch a commentary series ‘for Christian formation’, but if a reader picked up for ‘Spiritual Disciplines’ or devotional thoughts they are going to be disappointed. The ‘Conclusion’ sections are too general, and read like afterthoughts.




View all my reviews