"Paul" by N.T. Wright

My marathon through the works of N.T. Wright hits another mile with the completion of his "Paul In Fresh Perspective." It's right up on par in technicality and difficulty with "The Challenge of Jesus," much more complicated and in-depth than "Surprised By Hope" and "Simply Christian", both of which are marketed to the mass media. This book is basically an exploration of Pauline theology within several frameworks: Creation & Covenant (or Monotheism & Election), Gospel & Empire, etc. These themes of his theology integrate and overlap and show themselves vividly in his writings. Wright takes a lot of time showing how the traditional Jewish concepts of the day were reworked around Messiah in Pauline thought and how he translates this into the church. The last two chapters, one on the reworking of Jewish eschatology around Jesus, and the other on the task of the church in light of Paul's theology, were the best--and the most practical--of the entire book. Now I am launching into "What Saint Paul Really Said," and the first four chapters have been great so far.

All of this studying and thinking over the past couple months (I began sometime in early April) has been wearying. I am considering taking a sort of Sabbatical or Sabbath from studying, perhaps for like a week or so. I'm not sure if I want to, which is probably a good sign that I should. Being someone with bipolar disorder, one of the things I do have--a side affect of the condition, if you will--is the ability to focus on something for long periods of time, to pour myself into it, to really commit myself to it, become consumed by it. And, honestly, the idea of taking even a week off feels like a sort of laziness. But it's probably what I need.