






























Ecclesial Futures
2025 – Volume 6 – Issue 1

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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef23522

B O O K  R E V I E W

DOI: 10.54195/ef23522

Legrand, Lucien. 2023. Paul and Mission
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books
ISBN: 978-16-2698-516-2

Reviewed by John D. Doss

Lucien Legrand’s study of Paul and Mission was initially published in French in 2021 as 
Paul et la Mission: Apôtre des temps nouveaux. The English translation of his research 
on the man, the mission, the message and the method of Paul the apostle is valu-
able for studying the New Testament, early Christianity, and the Christian mission 
today. Paul and Mission is very readable, consisting of twelve concise chapters. The 
New Testament scholar has a gift for expressing the complexity of Paul’s thought in 
simple, understandable terms. Moreover, as a member of the Paris Foreign Mission 
Society and professor emeritus at St Peter’s Institute of Theology in Bangalore, India, 
Legrand is uniquely equipped to speak both to the ancient context and the contem-
porary implications of Paul’s mission.

Legrand opens the preface by asking, “Was Paul a missionary?” The method 
he rigorously applies to answer this question is studying the seven undisputed or 
authentic Pauline Epistles (Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thes-
salonians and Philemon). The Pastoral Epistles (1–2 Timothy, Titus) and especially the 
book of Acts are also essential for reconstructing Paul’s life and ministry even though 
they were written one or two generations afterward. Chapter 1 is the prelude. 
Legrand briefly sketches the life and times of the apostle, including his hometown of 
Tarsus, Roman citizenship, and especially his upbringing as a member of the Jewish 
Diaspora and training under Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem.

Chapters 2–5 are the first of three parts of Paul and Mission. Legrand begins with 
his conversion on the Damascus Road, where he saw the risen Lord and became an 
apostle. He focuses on Paul’s own references to his conversion in Galatians, 1–2 Corin-
thians, and Philippians. The Damascus Road encounter is reported several times in 
the book of Acts. Legrand acknowledges the differences between the portrayal of 
Paul in his letters and Acts. Nevertheless, he identifies essential points of agree-
ment, concluding that Acts is useful for reconstructing the historical Paul.

In chapters 3–4, Legrand explores two of Paul’s most frequent self- identifications: 
apostle and servant of Jesus Christ. The former is the basis of Paul’s authority to 



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teach, preach and establish churches among the nations of the ancient world. Paul 
defines an apostle as one who has seen Jesus (1 Cor. 9.1). Hence, his Damascus Road 
conversion was not a dream or vision but a physical encounter with the risen Lord 
himself. Moreover, the frequent designations of himself as a servant (diakonos) and 
slave (doulos) of Jesus emphasize his conformity to Christ and personal communion 
with him. Legrand notes the application for God’s servants today as those who 
must empty themselves to be united with Christ and experience his fullness in their 
ministry. Chapter 5 concerns Paul’s message, especially his “gospel”. Paul’s frequent 
use of the term demonstrates its centrality to his message. The gospel is the good 
news of God concerning his son, Jesus Christ. It is the message of love’s victory over 
human weakness accomplished by Jesus’s resurrection, which is the divine power of 
salvation for the world.

Part 2 (chapters 6–10) is the longest and most critical section of Paul and Mission. 
Chapters 6–7 concern Paul’s missionary project. Legrand begins by surveying paral-
lels to the Pauline mission in Second Temple Judaism and Roman Hellenism. Paul’s 
ministry remains distinct, though he is firmly situated in Judaism. His purpose was 
not merely to preach the good news but to establish small communities of converts 
in major cities across the Roman Empire. Hence, the church (ekklesia) was central to 
Paul’s missionary project, the subject of chapter 7. The new covenant community is 
comprised of those who are baptized in the name of Jesus and continually commem-
orate his death in the Lord’s Supper. Furthermore, the church is a community united 
with Christ through practicing Christian virtue, especially the triad of faith, hope and 
love.

Legrand discusses Paul’s mission field in chapter 8, defining his self-title as 
“apostle to the nations” (Rom. 11.13). He argues that this was not an ethnic but a 
geographical designation since Paul evangelized Jews along with Gentiles. Moreover, 
Paul’s assignment was to go west, where Judaism was culturally absent. In contrast, 
the apostles and others focused on the southern and eastern parts of the Roman 
Empire that had large, established Jewish communities. Legrand moves on to Paul’s 
methods in chapter 9. The apostle travelled with his missionary team around the 
empire by land and sea, working to support himself and receiving monetary support 
for his church-planting mission. Paul wrote letters to continue communicating his 
message to the churches in his absence.

Chapter 10 explores Paul’s “inculturation” of the gospel, i.e., the contextualization 
of a Palestinian Jewish sect for a Greco-Roman audience. He begins with an intriguing 
comparison between Paul and Jesus, who mainly taught rural peasants in Galilee as 
opposed to the major metropolitan centers of the Roman Empire. He discusses the 
influence of Stoicism on Paul as well as Hellenistic virtues like wisdom, freedom and 
glory. Paul’s genius lay in expressing the core of Jesus’s message in terms familiar 



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to his Mediterranean audience, calling them to join the counter cultural Jesus move-
ment.

The third and final part of Paul and Mission reflects on the source of the apostle’s 
power and his ministry of prayer. Paul credits the Holy Spirit as the source of his 
seemingly inexhaustible energy. The gift of the Spirit is also a primary motif in the 
book of Acts, but Legrand highlights Paul’s distinct emphasis on the Spirit’s resur-
rection power. In chapter 12, he asserts that Paul’s prayers are a distinctive feature 
of his epistles among other ancient letters and indicate the centrality of prayer in 
his ministry. This has powerful implications for today as prayer is inseparably inter-
twined with mission. Legrand concludes by answering his original question that Luke 
presents Paul as the model and hero of Christian mission, while his letters provide 
an earlier and more personal portrait of the apostle. The resurrection was central to 
Paul’s message of a new covenant community forged by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 
and transformed by the Spirit into his image.

Paul and Mission is a bath in the Scriptures, especially the Pauline Epistles, and 
a helpful resource for understanding his missiology. Legrand’s extensive focus on 
Paul’s mission in the seven undisputed epistles and the book of Acts is an impor-
tant contribution to biblical studies. He is to be commended for situating Paul within 
Second Temple Judaism, not as a founder of a new world religion. The missiological 
principles he distils are applicable to all Christians today, especially those serving in 
cross-cultural contexts.

Nevertheless, Paul and Mission has several shortcomings. First, while Legrand’s 
style of successively citing multiple passages immerses readers in the Pauline Epis-
tles, further comment on their interpretation is desired. Libraries of books have 
been written on Paul the Apostle, resulting in numerous fiercely debated readings 
of his epistles. A contemporary study of Paul’s mission cannot simply cite his letters, 
often lengthy block quotations, and assume readers know the proper meaning. I 
particularly enjoyed chapters 8–10 as Legrand makes intriguing claims concerning 
the interpretation of Paul and then supports his argument. These are more substan-
tive and thought-provoking than other sections of Paul and Mission, which contain 
lengthy chain quotations with little exegetical comment.

A second critique concerns Legrand’s methodology. His dependence on the book 
of Acts as a reliable source of historical information on the historical Paul conflicts 
with his view that it is a later tradition along with the Pastoral Epistles. Legrand often 
discusses the discrepancies between the portraits of Paul in Acts and his letters. Yet 
his reconstruction of the Pauline mission is sometimes primarily dependent on Acts. 
Further clarification of his methodology in this regard is needed. Moreover, some 
of the distinctions Legrand claims to have identified between the two corpora are 
suspect. For example, he asserts in chapter 3 that Acts does not refer to Paul as an 
apostle but reserves this title for the Twelve. However, Acts 14.4, 14 identify Paul and 



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Barnabas as apostles. Legrand explains that the term apostolos should be under-
stood here as “missionaries”. Nevertheless, the data clearly challenge Legrand’s 
interpretation of Acts.

Finally, Legrand’s portrait of Paul is instructive but incomplete. It is striking that 
Paul’s eschatology and doctrine of justification are almost entirely absent in Paul and 
Mission. Instead, Legrand focuses on the reconciliation at the cross and the present 
victory believers enjoy through the resurrection. His treatment of these themes and 
their bearing on Paul’s mission are insightful. However, one cannot understand the 
apostle or his mission without engaging his eschatology. Moreover, justification by 
faith in Christ was central to Paul’s message, as both the undisputed Paulines and the 
book of Acts (see 13.38-39) attests.

In conclusion, despite its inadequacies, Paul and Mission is a valuable contribution 
to the ongoing study of history’s most celebrated missionary and its implications for 
the contemporary Christian mission.

About the Reviewer
Rev John D. Doss, Asbury Theological Seminary, 204 N Lexington Ave, Wilmore, KY 
40390.
Contact: John.doss@asburyseminary.edu

mailto:John.doss@asburyseminary.edu

	Reviewed by John D. Doss
	Legrand, Lucien. 2023. Paul and Mission

