I've come rather interested in the establishment and transformation of the early Christian church, from ressurection through to the 300s and Constantine's alleged death bed adoption of the religion.

One difficult area I've found in my understanding (well, one of he largest) is understanding the impact of Saint Paul. So many of the biographies I've seen seek not to analyze why he created his teachings / policies and in what context they sit.

Can you recommend a book that does a good job of describing his point of view and tries to describe the context for some of his key teachings? This time period is very fascinating to me and I'm not looking for a religious text but rather a political / social analysis I think.