Of this work, F. W. Farrar writes, "My chief object has been to give a definite, accurate, and intelligible impression of St. Paul’s teaching; of the controversies in which he was engaged; of the circumstances which educed his statements of doctrine and practice; of the inmost heart of his theology in each of its phases; of his Epistles as a whole, and of each Epistle in particular as complete and perfect in itself."
"In our custom of studying the Bible year after year in separate texts and isolated chapters, we are but too apt to lose sight of what the Bible is as a whole, and even of the special significance of its separate books. I thought, then, that if I could in any degree render each of the Epistles more thoroughly familiar, either in their general aspect or in their special particulars, I should be rendering some service—however humble—to the Church of God..."
