Book 1 - The Gospel According to Paul

Here is the first of five posts on my list of Top 5 books.

I have had this little book in my library since 1967, before graduation from college, before Vietnam, before seminary. The price on the cover is $1.65.

When studying Paul, it is still a work I read with profit. In slightly more than 100 pages, A. M. Hunter puts St. Paul's thinking into a framework that makes sense to me. When I preached my first sermon, I stole shamelessly from this book, and of course learned there's more to preaching than reading a book on theology, even a good one.

Hunter groups Paul's think around the concept of salvation. He writes:"When Paul thought about salvation, he saw it in three tenses. It meant a past event, a present experience, and a future hope."

Any book that can make sense of Paul's theology in 100 pages has to be on my list.