How to Read the Bible Part 1: Picking a Good Commentary
Introduction
The questions I’m most often asked as both a pastor and a scholar have to do with how to read the Bible well. A lot of people, both Christians and not, see value in the Bible, but feel overwhelmed when approaching such an ancient and cross-cultural book. Christians know they should read the Bible, and the prevailing message in modern conversations about Bible reading is that it should be simple—that the Bible need only be read “at face value.”
But in the privacy of our own devotional and study time, we often find ourselves bewildered at odd or troubling passages, confused by why the countless amounts of census data and genealogies can be beneficial to our lives, and perplexed at points where the authors appear to contradict one another (and sometimes, even themselves).
First, it’s important to understand that reading the Bible is not a simple task. Ironically, the Bible itself attests to this:
…just as our dear friend and brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of these things in all his letters. Some of his remarks are hard to understand, and people who are ignorant and whose faith is weak twist them to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures. (2 Pet. 3:15b-16)
Second, if the study of the Bible is difficult at times, it is ok—even appropriate—to learn how to engage the Scriptures well. In light of that reality I thought I would publish, over the next several weeks, some of the best practices that I give to people when they ask questions about studying the Bible. This first edition addresses the most frequent question I get: “How do I choose a good commentary?” At present are several principles I apply to my own study life when choosing a Bible commentary.
1. Choose from commentary sets that use multiple authors.
Why, you ask? Simply because the Bible is complex—66 books written over a 1,300 year period in 3 languages from 40 authors representing a host of cultures and worldviews. There are scholars who devote their entire lives to studying one genre—one book—even one chapter. No one in a single lifetime can possess that level of mastery over the entire Bible. That doesn’t mean, if you read one of the single-author sets you’re getting wrong information necessarily. But it does mean that the richness of the content will likely be less.
Instead, choose commentaries that are stand-alones or part of a set where the publisher has leveraged the expertise of a wide range of Biblical scholars, such as the NIV Application Commentary or the New International Commentary on the New Testament.
The only exception I might give to this rule is N.T. Wright’s commentaries on the New Testament but, let’s face it—N.T. Wright is a genius in his own category.
2. Steer clear of the freebies.
There are a wide range of commentaries available for free online but most of them are incredibly outdated. As odd is it may sound that a Bible commentary might become outdated, believe it or not biblical scholarship is an evolving academic discipline. How the Bible is interpreted has changed since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, various archeological finds, and other academic advancements that help us understand the cultures who first received the inspired collection of books we now call the Bible.
Actually financially invest in commentaries. They are an extremely valuable resource for you and purchasing commentaries also helps fund biblical scholarship. The one exception I give to my “no freebies” rule is the forthcoming ThirdMill Study Bible, but that is because ThirdMill’s ministry mission is to provide high quality scholarship to Christians in the majority world for free. And, I also worked on the commentary notes for a number of the books including Ruth, Jonah, Ezekiel, 1 & 2 Corinthians, and Revelation.
3. Use Bestcommentaries.com
No, bestcommentaries.com did not sponsor this post (though if they’d like to, I’d happily accept!). But I’ve found this website to be an extremely valuable help when looking for a commentary on a particular book, because the site organizes available commentaries by book and ranks them in order of their reviews and popularity. It even tells you the academic complexity of the commentary so you know if you’re biting off something you can chew.
4. Read from the Fathers and Mothers of the Faith
Contrary to my rule about not reading freebies, some of the great commentaries of the Christian faith by thinkers like Augustine, Chrysostom, etc., are available online for free. I also own and really like the Ancient Faith Study Bible. Which organizes the thoughts of the church fathers in study Bible format, making it easy and accessible. We need more interaction with the ancients than we do the popular stuff that fits on Instagram.
5. Read Cross-Culturally
Through browsing commentaries you’ll likely notice that an overwhelming majority of them are written by elderly, white, Western, men. But just as it is important to read from a diversity of theological perspectives (Pentecostals, Reformed, Anglican, etc.), it’s also extremely important to read how the Bible is read and interpreted by people of color, women, and theologians from the majority world. If you do, you’ll likely be surprised at how reading the perspectives of those who come from a different life than you illuminates the assumptions that you are likely bringing to the text.
6. Some of my favs
Most of these you can find listed on the bestcommentaries.com site but here are just a couple of my favorite commentaries on random books:
Acts—F.F. Bruce
Exalting Jesus in Luke—Thabiti Anyabwile
Romans—F.F. Bruce
Revelation—G.K. Beale (there’s a shorter and expanded version of this)
1 Corinthians & 2 Corinthians—C.K. Barrett (one volume for each book)
1 Corinthians—Gordon Fee
Ezekiel—Lamar Cooper; Iain Duguid
Colossians/Philemon—N.T. Wright
2 Peter/Jude—Douglas Moo (recommended to me by my wife, Tara)
One Final Thought
It doesn’t take much inspection to see how women and people of color are sorely underrepresented in biblical commentary writing (though, most notably, Tony Evans recently published a study Bible with tremendous reviews). I would be interested in hearing what your favorite Bible commentaries are written by women and people of color. If you have some favs, hit me up and let me know!
