If you use modern scholarly works, you already know Thomas R. Schreiner. He has written a multitude of well-received, highly helpful books including major exegetical commentaries. Now he tackles a handbook on Acts and the Epistles of Paul. Fortunately, when we say the Epistles of Paul, Schreiner means all 13 of them! That alone was totally refreshing. Schreiner is simply more conservative than several other major scholars of our day. For that reason alone, any work he writes is worth checking out.

I would label this volume a content survey. Those can be quite tricky to produce and some such volumes have almost no value. Rather than giving an overview, they provide so little depth that they add nothing. In this case, however, Schreiner has succeeded. You can truly follow the flow of the book you’re studying and have a real understanding of what’s going on. Think big picture rather than minutia, but a real drawing out of the theme of what that book is trying to say to us.

Perhaps I liked a few of the introductions better than others. In some cases like the one on Acts, he added a few helpful charts that just brought it alive in the opening statements that discussed structure and themes. In fact, that would be my only minor fault of the book is that a few of the books of the Bible covered do not have that material with the helpful charts. In any event, I feel he totally succeeded both in the broad introduction and the overview of the content. This volume is a total winner on providing what I would want in a handbook on these New Testament books. I don’t see how you could go wrong in using it!

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.