This week's selection for the Friday's Finds series is my copy of Barth's Epistle to the Romans. While it's certainly not a commentary in the usual sense of that word, this important book is also not a textbook in Christian doctrine, politics, or philosophy -- in the way that lots of Barth's later books might be construed. Instead, Epistle to the Romans is a pastor's attempt to allow the "strange new world of the Bible" to transform the Church's life in this world, for the sake of the Kingdom.
I suppose if one were to start reading Barth, this is the place to begin, because so much of what Barth has to say is said here in a way that will preach. (Not that Church Dogmatics won't preach -- but it will be more of a struggle for pastors who preach Sunday in and Sunday out.) This is certainly the first of Barth's book I ever read, as a college sophomore. And it made all the difference in how I learned to allow the biblical text to narrate the world I've been attempting to inhabit ever since.
While Bonhoeffer introduced me to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (in his Discipleship), Barth introduced me to Paul (and Paul's preaching of the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount). So many scholars have attempted, over the years, to divorce those two Jesuses. Barth knows better. And Epistle to the Romans is the best place to hear him tell you why.