Glenn Brooke's Recommendations on
Bible Commentaries
I don't say much about Bible commentaries in my book and special reports on tools
for Bible teachers. There's a reason for
this. I've seen too many people become teachers utterly dependent upon some
"expert's" words rather than trusting in the Lord to teach them what their
students need to learn.
But people continue to ask for my opinion
on Bible commentaries. So I thought it would be worth writing about
where commentaries should fit in your Bible study toolkit, and which one I do
recommend.
Let me first help
place the value of a Bible commentary
in your Bible Study toolkit.
I am under conviction
that you must spend most of your time in the Bible text itself. That's where
your primary reading Bible is used. Then you can use tools like Thompson's
Chain Reference Bible to help you understand Scripture by Scripture. (I've
written about this extensively here and here). Vine's Expository Dictionary
lets you understand key Hebrew and Greek word meanings and usage. Nave's
Topical Bible lets you explore all the Scripture related to a theme or topic.
Commentaries are most useful to
get perspective on things you cannot learn from the Bible text itself. These
include:
- related information
about secular historical events and the culture of the pagan
nations
- church scholars' views
on this book or theme over time
- differing
interpretations of prophecy
So for a book like
Daniel (which I'm studying now in preparation for teaching later this year), a
commentary is extremely helpful. You can learn much more about the history of
the Babylonians, Medes, and Persians. There are different ideas about how to
interpret the prophecies in chapters 7-12. You can get insights about the
archeological evidence that has surfaced over time. (By the way, the TCRB has
an excellent section on archeology.)
My specific
Bible commentary recommendation.
I use the Expositor's Bible Commentary series,
edited by Frank E. Gaebelein. Each book commentary is written by a different
person, so you get excellent quality throughout. There are 12 volumes overall.
You can purchase them as individual volumes, the OT set, or the NT
set. This set is new enough to reflect fairly recent scholarship, and has been in use long enough to be judged as quality work. The scholarship is conservative across denominational lines.
But the real bargain is to buy the whole set on CD -- all
twelve volumes for only $99. This is an outstanding value compared to purchasing the books themselvers (usually over $270!) And it is helpful
to have the commentary electronically for making notes and handouts for your students.
I recommend this commentary even if you are not regularly teaching from the NIV translation. You will not have much difficulty using
it as a reference tool for other translations. The strength is in the historical information, translation from the Hebrew and Greek words, and discussions about views through Church history -- most of which is valuable irrespective of what English translation you are using.
I haven't done
an exhaustive Bible commentary evaluation. But I've come to trust the
Expositor's Bible Commentary series and found it very helpful as a
reference. This, or a comparable commentary series, below in every serious
Bible teachers toolkit eventually. It's not the first tool you should buy, but it's a great tool for advanced study.
Price is a significant issue to many people. Tools like this are an excellent investment in your teaching ministry. If you can't afford this personally, I recommend you check with your local church or even local public library about acquiring this tool and making it available.
Let me say it again,
as clearly as possible: Invest yourself in studying the Bible text itself first,
and work towards using commentaries as a reference. It is a mistake to
jump quickly to see that the "expert" says and build your teaching on that.
Teach to change lives,
Glenn
PS. You can get
some Bible commentaries like Matthew Henry's for free online -- keep in mind
that these are dated and will not contain information from the past two hundred
years.