Frank Thielman on the Center of Paul's Theology

This spring I used Frank Thielman's Theology of the New Testament as a textbook when teaching in Ethiopia, and was impressed with his argument that  the center of Paul's theology is best described as God's grace.

"If one theological theme is more basic than others in Paul's letters, ... it is this notion that God is a gracious God and that he has shown his grace preeminently in his arrangement of history to answer the problem of human sinfulness in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.
     This is "the truth of the gospel" that Paul passionately defended against those who threatened it in Jerusalem and Antioch. When false brothers at the Jerusalem council tried to insist that a right relationship with God was defined not only by faith in Christ but by conformity to the Mosaic law, Paul "did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain intact" (Gal 2:5). When Peter, under pressure from Jewish believers from Jerusalem, tried to force Gentile Christians in Antioch to conform to the Mosaic law, Paul told him that he was out of line with "the truth of the gospel" (Gal 2:14).
     The problem in both instances was that by insisting on conformity to the Mosaic law as a means--however partial--of bringing people into a right relationship with God, both the false brothers and Peter had "set aside the grace of God" and implied that "Christ died for nothing" (Gal 2:21). Here, then, Paul answers for us the question of the "center" of his theology. It is an answer given in the passion of the moment, but as the importance of this concept throughout the Pauline corpus demonstrates, it was an answer that arose from Paul's deepest convictions."

Frank Thielman, Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 479.