Paul's beliefs about Jesus were at the centre of his religious commitment, and any attempt to understand Paul's religious thought (or 'theology') has to make central what he believed about Jesus Christ. If considered apart from his religious life, however, these christological beliefs can come across as lifeless intellectual categories or even historical curiosities. In a proper portrayal, his christology should be seen in the context of his religious life, within which a passionate devotion to Christ is central.

One cannot read passages such as Phil. 3:7–11, for example, without sensing the depth of religious feeling towards Christ that seems to have characterized Paul’s Christian life. In this passage, Paul compares unfavourably all of his pre-conversion religious efforts and gains over against ‘the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’. He then posits as his aims to ‘gain Christ’ and ‘to know Christ’, amplified here in terms of intense aspirations to know ‘the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death’.