Since this book is written by two authors and covers 4 different NT books, it is a mixed bag and hard to categorize overall.
The first section covers 1 Thessalonians. An interesting change from the pace of most other authors is the use of rhetorical outlining in which the letter finds structure in a parallel fashion to the great speeches and writings of contemporaneous Rome. I have no idea how accurate this assesment is and it adds little to the overall thrust, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Donfried does an adequate job of showing all the major themes of the letter - election, suffering, parousia, etc. - as well as the more mundane place and date. He then goes on to relate such things to the Pauline corpus as a whole and then to our situation today.
2 Thessalonians receives nearly identical treatment. Everything written for both letters is all just okay. Perhaps it is because these first letters of Paul are not as gripping as his later work or perhaps it is because Donfried continues to draw in Paul's later work too much and thus distract from looking at just these letters, but I did not find myself fully engaged while reading through his exposition. If anything, his only sin is being uncreative in his presentation and bland in his analysis, but both are solid.
The survey of Philippians by Marshall which follows is even more bland. Instead of the basic four chapter structure, he uses an outline that is both more cheesy and less helpful by using the metaphor of building a "church" building. His look at preformed material, christology, etc. are all just as bland as Donfried's but it is set in the context of a jarring metaphor that I cannot disenage from. I feel as though I missed out on getting a better idea of Philippians' theology because of the ridiculous allegory.
Finally Philemon is covered and is much better than Philippians, but there is so little attention given to it that it is hard to enjoy it.
Overall, the ideas presented are neither shocking nor dull which makes the book just mediocre. For an introduction to these letters this book will serve just fine as it makes solid arguments and gives it in a clear (if uninspired) manner.
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