This is finally the last post in the series on Bible study aids following week two of our How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth class. Commentaries are often the first source we turn to for help in understanding a passage, but should probably be our last.
There is something rewarding about mining the Scriptures for the truth that lies beneath the surface. Often this mining requires the types of tools we’ve covered in prior posts, like Bible Dictionaries, Bible Encyclopedias, Concordances, Word Study Guides, and resources like New Manners and Customs.
However, there are times (often after working through a passage on our own) when we are well served by going to a trusted commentary where reliable scholars have done that work for us.
Commentaries range from a singe volume that covers the entire Bible to multiple volumes on one book of the Bible. Over the years, I have made good use of the Bible Knowledge Commentary Old Testament and New Testament that came with my Bible software.
If you are looking for a more in-depth commentary, check out CBD’s excellent deal on the well-respected 12-volume The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. I recently purchased this set, but haven’t used it enough yet to give a personal report on it.
The ‘Expositors’ is a good reference set and a great deal. We bought this set for the Pastors of G.F. I would also recommend the New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament. The NICOT/NICNT is a bit expensive, but a great investment.
Thanks, Dan.
For those of you with shelf space for 39 volumes and $939.99 you can part with here is your link.
Does anyone know anything about John Gill’s Exposition of Old and New Testaments (9 volumes)?
Commentary series are great but you will get some good commentaries and some not so good ones with this method. It is really better to be eclectic and just get the best ones regardless of the series.
The best resource for picking NT commentaries that I know of is D.A. Carson’s New Testament Commentary Survey. Carson often lists the level of detail of each commentary and if it is appropriate for scholars vs ministers vs lay people.
There is a companion edition for the OT (not by Carson) but after looking through it, I found that some of his choices seemed more “critical” than conservative but it was an outdated copy so I am not really recommending it one way or the other.
One other method I use to pick commentaries is to find a passage in the biblical book I am shopping for which I think is hard or which I have questions about. I then read that section in several of the commentaries and see how they handled it. If they answered my questions and tried to handle the text fairly (even if they didn’t answer it with the answer I like) then I would find it a useful commentary and I might buy it.
The more commentaries you look at and purchase in the one-by-one format the more you start to identify authors who you think handle the text and have theological positions similar to yours. Then you can just buy those authors regardless of the series. For example I will buy anything from Carson, Schreiner, or O’Brien.
Also, pay attention to publishers. Publishers are to books what categories (e.g. country, jazz, etc.) are to music. A publisher has a style and doctrinal slant. For example, I have never read a deviant work published by Moody Press. Also, Eerdmans is usually more scholarly with its commentaries than Zondervan. I have found that paying attention to the publisher is very helpful.