« Back to Issue 47

Paul the Missionary ? Realities, Strategies & Methods

Author:	Eckhard J Schnabel
Published By:	IVP Academic/Apollos (Grand Rapids/Nottingham)
Pages:	518
Price:	£16.99
ISBN:	9 781844 743490

Reviewed by Chris Skilton.

This reference book on the work and writings of Paul comes from an unashamedly conservative stable. It is a more popular version of the author’s two volume work, Early Christian Mission. Schnabel looks in turn at the Work, Task, Message, Goal and Methods of Paul. He assumes Pauline authorship throughout - including Timothy and Titus - and his reading of Galatians is from a traditional evangelical perspective without reference to the ‘New Paul’ studies.

The book is a comprehensive survey, meticulous in detail. Paul’s missionary journeys are logged into fifteen different phases - and we learn that he travelled 15,000 miles as a missionary (8,700 of them by land!). The book does have excellent and copious footnotes for those who want to follow ideas further and has a good scripture and subject index. The bibliography is extensive, but many readers would want some shaping and ordering to this by subject and theme for it to be of real value.

The most stimulating chapter for me covered Paul’s Missionary Message, looking at the different ethnic, social, theological, ideological and pastoral settings in and to which Paul wrote. There was less to learn from the section headed ‘Missionary Task’ which in little more than thirty pages sought to summarise the message of all of Paul’s letters (and, for some, more than these!). Schnabel does have a gift for ordering and schematising a large corpus of material and many will find helpful his section (pages 356-373) itemising twelve reasons for the success of Paul’s missionary work.

His final chapter on ‘The Task of Missionary Work in the Twenty First Century’ marks a change of gear, albeit rooted in the Pauline material. It is addressed primarily to the American audience for which it was first written, but he writes powerfully about the danger of homogenous churches and groupings. He is also concerned about the language of marketing and reliance on method superseding dependence on the grace and power of God. It would make a good stand alone article.

This book will be of particular value to those ministers and churches who like their Pauline theology to be at the conservative end of the spectrum. For those who do, it is a good reliable reference book which is easy to navigate.