Paul's project, he often says, is building--not building with bricks and mortar but rather with people. He lays the foundation with the shockingly good news of one true God who raised Jesus from the dead, in order to build a new family with no divisions, all of whom can call God Father. In a world of widespread ethnic rivalry and trenchant divisiveness, Paul's strong corrective message in Galatians demands to be heard and reheard. In these studies by Tom Wright, we hear once again what remains shockingly good news.
N. T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England (2003-2010) and one of the world's leading Bible scholars. He is now serving as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. He has been featured on ABC News, Dateline NBC, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air, and he has taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford universities. Wright is the award-winning author of Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Last Word, The Challenge of Jesus, The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the much heralded series Christian Origins and the Question of God.
This little volume is a study guide for small groups who wish to do a study of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians in the New Testament. My small group has been reading through Galatians since last February using this book to facilitate. The book walks you through in 10 chapters with a number of discussion questions designed to bring out what Paul is saying to the early Christians in Galatia (mid-First Century A.D., in what is now central Turkey) and what it means for us today. For what it's designed to do, it doesn't get better than this!
As far as very basic study guides go, this is a pretty good one. I don't know whether Wright himself wrote the study questions (I suspect he didn't, as some of them are a bit cheesy), but overall the book accomplishes its purpose, guiding the reader through Galatians and hitting the highlights. I did not read the companion volume, the N.T. Wright for Everyone volume on Galatians, but will probably pick up a copy soon.
Wright does Bible study guides right. They are full of historical background that helps understand what Paul was saying and why. But he also asks great practical application questions to make the text real. Highly recommend as a small group resource.