Finally finished reading What Saint Paul Really Said. Very good stuff. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the more I compare criticisms of N.T. Wright with Wright's actually writings, the more puzzled I am. Do these people actually read the sum total of his writings, or just dissect (out-of-context) the parts that set their "Reformed" Spidey senses a-tingling? It's also frustrating to hear people dismiss (or worse) him for not being "Reformed enough," whatever that means.

An analogy (and warning - I'm not good with coming up with analogies): it's like getting directions from your house to a friend's house. Even if you don't follow the directions your friend gave you, you can still arrive at the destination. Wright seems to be saying that Luther et al ended up at the right house (the directions gave a pretty good description of what the house looked like, what neighborhood it is in, etc), but didn't really follow the directions very well. Wright is saying, "Sure, we could take the route Luther took and still get there, but why don't we take the original directions that Paul gave us?" Perhaps this way is faster or safer or has better scenery. Maybe Luther was envisioning a bicycle ride, when Paul actually had a carpool in mind. Either way, you'll still get to the right house in the end.

I think it's time to read some fiction for a change ...