Advice on reading Paul's Letters

[Anonymous No.7559868]

I have read most of the Bible (including the genealogies) but have never gotten past Paul's letters. I find the Bible much more of a page turner when it is a narrative and thus I also found the Prophet books difficult and mostly skimmed and skipped.

Anyways even though I am not Christian I really want to read and get something out of the Pauline epistles. Any advice or companion texts that would interest me and/or help me better understand them?

It was cool that after reading the Greeks, the letters are often named after Greek cities but that is the only thing that peaks my interest and every now and again, I read something from Paul that seems cool.

What order should I read them in, how they are in the Bible? And of course without a contest, KJV is necessary.

[Anonymous No.7559884]

>>7559868
>peaks my interest

Or is it piques? I always thought my interest was being variable and at one moment it peaks or is at its highest. Is that right?

[Anonymous No.7559930]

>>7559868

I suppose for a non-Christian they can get a little dry and technical. They're significant (and sometimes controversial) within the Christian church in terms of what they teach, how binding they are today, and so on. One thing that might be interesting is to trace how the epistles talk about homosexuality or the role of women in the church vis a vis what some church bodies teach on these subjects.

Something you might have picked up is that some of the letters are addressed to congregations in particular cities and others to individual persons, so you can look for differences there. (One example is how Paul starts off by giving thanks at the beginning of his letters for whomever he is addressing, with the exception of Galatians: 'I am astonished that you have turned away so quickly...'.) Also a few of them were written by disciples, Hebrews is anonymous, and some believe that not all of the Pauline epistles were actually written by Paul, so tracing those details could make reading the epistles more interesting.

[Anonymous No.7559952]

>>7559930

All of those things are interesting to me and I have come across it piecemeal in different books. Is there any one book or article that has things like that together or else some essays on each or some of the letters? It is fine if it comes from a Christian perspective just as long as it is literary or historical or interesting in general.