Gospel Hope, Now
A Feature Review of
Paul for the World: A Grounded Vision for Finding Meaning in This Life—Not Just the Next
Nijay K. Gupta
Paperback: Brazos Press, 2026
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Reviewed by Rob O’Lynn
In his preface, Gupta begins in a way that is, well, strange: “Paul for the World is designed as a follow-up to Strange Religion” (vii). Going back and revising a text is common to religious studies. My shelves are full of second editions, with some third (Thomas Long’s The Witness of Preaching) and a handful of fourth editions (like Haddon Robinson’s Biblical Preaching and Fee and Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth). I even have all three editions of Elements of Biblical Exegesis by Michael Gorman. Editions are common, sequels are not. This puts us in the territory of books like Augustine’s Confessions and The City of God or Lewis’s The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed.
Gupta’s decision to veer off-course is not without merit: “[Paul for the World] is not exactly a how-to guide for the Christian life today. But it does deal with how we enable our faith to transform our everyday lives in this world” (vii). He was inspired to address “the present challenges that we face today that often lead us to despair about life in this world” (vii). Arguing that humanity is “desperate for hope, for a way out” based on the never-ending barrage of dystopian fiction and films (something I feel and am personally drawn to), Gupta says that he wanted to write “about how Christians find hope in the gospel in a world that often feels doomed” (viii). This quest leads him specifically to Paul the Apostle.
This is where being a sequel comes into play. In Strange Religion, Gupta took contemporary Christians on a journey back to first century Christians, hoping that it would inspire contemporary Christians to live with similar conviction today. With that foundation of what a revolutionary faith looks like, Gupta’s goal in this book is to stir these same contemporary Christians to face the challenges before us, demonstrating that we are convicted in our belief that “God is for us” (Rom. 8:31, NRSVUE) and can, therefore, “‘gospel’ this world into transformation…because nothing is impossible with God” (ix). Gupta is advocating for a contextualized and incarnational approach to the Christian faith.
To Gupta, Christian faith is not the escapism of isolationism but mission, what he calls “holy worldliness” (1). An expert exegete, Gupta mines Paul’s rich (and, often, unnecessarily complicated…yes, I said it) theological perspective to argue that Paul understood that there was so much more to Christian faith than simply going to heaven. The call to holiness is not found in retreating to the desert to live on top of a pole (looking at you Simeon the Elder and Simeon the Younger; 7) or rejecting entirely the world around us for fear of our spiritual condition being irrevocably polluted like the Gnostics or Manicheans. Paul advocated for “holy worldliness,” wanting “believers to imitate Christ and walk in the Spirit here and now” (3). This is the focus of Part 1, where Gupta unpacks this concept of “holy worldliness.” It is best understood through Bonhoeffer’s application of Paul’s theology to see the world not as a garbage dump but as a battlefield littered with souls in need of Christ’s healing love (Chapter 1). He contrasts that against “unholy worldliness” of the Corinthians (the acceptance of Plato rather than Christ in both faith and practice in Chapter 2), and recenters the concepts of teleois (“maturity”) and paideia (“training”) in Christian discipleship, accepting that our eternal purpose is to “grow up” spiritually in the here and now (Chapter 3).
Part 2 focuses on the “this-worldly problems” that Paul addresses in his letters (66). This is something that contemporary readers often miss, either because we are trying to spiritually allegorize everything or because we are trying to apply these ancient teachings literally without taking context into consideration. However, let us never forget that each of Paul’s letters is reactionary, where he sought to solve a problem presented to him by one of his congregations (or like 47 problems in the case of the Corinthian letters). Paul writes about grief in 1 Thessalonians, supporting the poor in 2 Corinthians, and settling personal disputes in Philippians and Philemon. We typically see each of these as “spiritual” matters; however, Paul was really Christianity’s first conflict mediator. Paul did not separate concerns into “secular” or “sacred” because all things belong to God (cf., 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16) and all we do should be done through Christ (cf., Rom. 14:8; Phil. 4:13). Gupta discusses how Paul considered the way Christians approach justice (Chapter 4), ethnic equality (Chapter 5), economics (Chapter 6), vocation (Chapter 7), friendship (Chapter 8), athletic competition (Chapter 9), health (Chapter 10) and the arts (Chapter 11) as essential topics for our paideis toward teleois.
Once again, Gupta offers an excellent book immersed in scholarly research yet written with the lay reader in mind. This book will challenge your perspective of what the purpose of Christian faith is, whether its total nature as in Part 1 or specific areas like the ones discussed in Part 2. This is where Paul for the World serves most as a sequel to Strange Religion, adding practical application to the earlier conceptual ground laying. And while this initially struck me as a concern (that you would need to read Strange Religion for this to make sense), Gupta largely avoids this so that Paul for the World can stand on its own merit. And, in all transparency, I say this as the reviewer of Strange Religion.
Ultimately, a review should answer the question of who this book is best suited for. And while I want to shout “Everyone!” in my best Gary Oldman impression, I will close by saying this: If you want your Christian faith to make a difference not just in your life but in the lives of those around you, take and eat and be blessed.
Rob O'Lynn
Rob O'Lynn is Associate Professor of Preaching and Ministry, Director of Graduate Bible Programs, and Dean of the School of Distance and General Education at Kentucky Christian University. He has served congregations in Arkansas, Texas, West Virginia and Kentucky. You can follow him @DrRobOLynn on BlueSky or Instagram.
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