Leaving aside for a moment my reading on this subject, I would like just to jot down here some of the questions and challenges posed by the New Perspective on Paul, especially in the version developed by Bishop N.T. (Tom) Wright.

1. Jesus and Paul.  Have we distorted the gospel by privileging the teaching of Paul above that of Jesus?
2. ‘Reformation spectacles’.  Do we tend to read Paul too much in the light of debates and doctrines formulated at the time of the Reformation, and too little in the light of 1st-century setting in which Paul (and Jesus himself, of course) lived and taught?
3. Grace.  Did Paul’s Jewish contemporaries (and Paul himself, prior to his Damascus Road experience) generally hope to be saved by grace, or by works?
4. ‘The works of the law’.  Does the expression ‘the works of the law’ in Paul’s writings refer more widely to any efforts to commend onself to God on the basis of keeping the law, or more narrowly to those practice that marked a person out as a Jew (Sabbath observance, food laws, circumcision and so on)?
5. Covenant.  Are we apt to view Paul’s writings (to the Romans, especially) as a repository of timeless truths, which we can mine Paul’s writings for proof texts that will support a previously-constructed system of theology, or are we prepared to  read him in the context of the ‘big picture’ – the overall covenant-focussed storyline – of the Bible?
6. ‘The righteousness of God’.  Does the expression ‘the righteousness of God’ in Paul’s writings primarily denote God’s just and holy character, or does it rather refer to God’s covenant faithfulness?
7. Exile.  Did Jewish people of Paul’s day tend to think of themselves as still awaiting deliverance from exile?
8. Sin.  Is ‘repentance’ to be thought of primarily as a turning from sin to Christ or is it to be thought of as ‘getting on board’ with God’s project to renew the world?
9. Atonement.  Is the cross-work of Jesus to be thought of principally as a work of substitution for the penalty of sin, or as a victory over the powers of evil (or neither, or both)?
10. Imputation.  Is a doctrine of ‘imputation of Christ’s righteousness’ taught by Paul, or is it a piece of theological fiction that dates back only as far as the Reformation?
11. Faith.  Does the expression ‘faith in Christ’ represent a satisfactory translation of the original Greek, or should the underlying phrase be rendered, ‘the faithfulness of Christ’?
12. Salvation.  Do we focus on the individual and other-worldly aspects of salvation (‘going to heaven when I die’) to the detriment of the corporate and this-worldly aspects (membership of the people of God and the renewal of all things)?
13. Gospel.  Is ‘the gospel’ a scheme of salvation, or is it rather an announcement that Jesus, crucified and risen, is Messiah and Lord?
14. Justification.  Is ‘justification by grace through faith’ a doctrine that can do service for the whole scheme of salvation, or is it, more narrowly, the doctrine that declares that all who believe in Jesus are members of the covenant people of God?
15. Eschatology.  Does justification happen at the moment that a person believes in Christ, or is it a declaration that will be made at the last day (albeit brought forward into the present)?
16. Judgement.  Are those who believe in Jesus Christ justified now, by grace through faith, and if so does this not exclude any future judgment according to their works?
17. Ecclesiology.  Are Paul’s letters to Romans and Galatians more about ecclesiology (relationships within the Christian community – especially between Jewish and Gentile believers) than they are about soteriology (how people are saved)?