I was delighted when I heard that the Church has called this year the ‘Year of Paul’ because Paul has to be the most misunderstood of the New Testament writers. Some people call him a misogynist, others an apostle of freedom. Some think that he over emphasises the law while for others there’s too much emphasis on the Spirit.

Some are confused by church practices of Paul’s day that they don’t understand while still others ignore him as being irrelevant. Anything that can help us move beyond a simplistic understanding of his works can only be for our benefit. Some of the things that he gets blamed for, many of the scholars tell us he didn’t even write, so by inviting us to focus on his writings this year we’re being invited to try and discover more fully the riches that he discovered.

I think it is impossible to ignore this man who challenges and cajoles us to enter more deeply into the mystery of salvation. Sometimes his writings are difficult to understand and I would suggest that when you read them you do so with a good commentary next to you even if it’s only so that you can understand the cultural background in which Paul was writing.

Underlying everything is his experience of meeting Jesus

Underlying everything he writes is his experience of meeting Jesus. Real conversion changes the way you see things and do things. It turns the world upside down. That’s what happens to Paul.

He discovers the sort of God who wants nothing in return for loving and it blows his mind and most of his letters are an attempt to tease out what that relationship with Jesus is all about. When you read his writings if you look carefully you’ll discover several recurring themes that help us enter more deeply into his understanding. Richard Rohr the American Franciscan identifies those themes. Maybe they will help you as you read.

• The death and resurrection of Jesus is the pattern that defines everything for Paul and any experience that leads you into the death and resurrection experience is conversion.

• Paul has an ability to evaluate religious traditions. He thought of himself as a Jew until the end but he gave the Jewish tradition a really hard time. He constantly calls into question the rituals which had taken the place of the reality.

Called to conversion every day

• His hopes about the Messiah are turned upside down. Paul is a good Jew longing for a messiah. When he meets the risen Christ he sees the bigger picture and realises Jesus is the saviour

• Paul trusts his inner experience more than anything else. It’s why at times he can appear to boast. He knows that God has transformed his life and that no-one can take that from him

• Paul knew that he was saved while still a sinner. Once you believe that you are God’s beloved it will change your life. It’s total gift and it has almost nothing to do with you except you are receiving it.

• The sixth theme is the tension between the law and the spirit of the law. Paul usually comes down on the side of the spirit of the law but now and again he steps into legalism.

• For Paul Jesus becomes the pattern of a cosmic human being presented most beautifully in Colossians. Christ is not just confined to one historical moment he is the pattern for everything.

• Paul boasts about his suffering as a means for discovering who you really are in God. It’s the old adage: no breakthrough without breakdown.

• For Paul everything belongs and God is in all things. Sometimes it’s agonised and sometimes obscure and sometimes over theological.

• As far as Paul’s concerned once you've had authentic experience of God you no longer think with a dualistic mind. You don't divide the world anymore into black and white because God has overcome the darkness and the light in you, accepted it and held it. Paul keeps appealing to all kinds of language to draw things together, faith and law, flesh and spirit.

Paul is the most wonderful and the most frustrating New Testament writer. You can see how his thoughts change and develop throughout his writings but his one desire is that his reader hears the call that he has experienced, the call to conversion.

We’re all called to conversion every day because none of us have ever arrived. We all need to experience transformation. If you haven’t had that experience then maybe read Paul with fresh eyes and ears, keep aware of his themes and see how they invite you to be transformed and converted here and now.