JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on Biblical theology. Today, Jason and Tom talk about using resources like Bible introductions, study Bibles, and commentaries. How should we use these tools? The conversation begins with some general thoughts and ends with suggestions regarding specific Bible introductions, study Bibles, and commentaries.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. Jason, what are we doing right now?

JD: We are getting ready for a podcast on how to use Bible introductions, commentaries, and study Bibles for both our devotions and sermon and teaching prep. That’s our topic for the day.

TK: That’s a joyful topic. Believers in the 1st century would have no category for that. For so many things.

JD: But it’s important to recognize there’s a reason for that, and there are benefits to having these tools. These are secondary sources. And yet we want to remember and keep them like that. They are secondary, not primary. The primary source in our devotions is Scripture. The primary source for our sermon and teaching prep is the Scripture, and we want to make sure that we’re able to enter into the Ladies’ Bible study, the Wednesday night small group, the lectern or the pulpit, with conviction to be able to say, “Thus says the Lord,” to be able to let our words, as Peter says in 1 Peter 4:11, “those who speak may they speak as if speaking the very oracles of God,” that what’s coming out of our mouth people are able to see in the book, because we’ve entered in. This is ours with conviction rather than, you know, “Thus says Tom Kelby,” “Thus says Jason DeRouchie,” or going further “Thus says Carson or Beale or Piper or Moo or Schreiner.” These are highly influential figures that have helped shape contemporary evangelicalism. And we can celebrate them, but they are still secondary to the biblical text. But today our focus is on: God’s given us these tools, how should we be thinking about them? How do we use them faithfully? Bible introductions, commentaries, study Bibles?

TK: Alright. Well, Jason, let’s start with Bible introductions. And even before we get there, I guess, want to say this topic today—you already mentioned it—it isn’t just for pastors. So a study Bible, for instance, is something that is a gift. I would encourage all believers to have one and use it. I think it’s a great help. So a commentary doesn’t just belong into a category that only, for instance, a pastor should have one. But what do you mean by biblical introduction?

JD: Well, it truly is a genre like we would say poetry, a book of poems, or we would say mystery novels, or we would say children’s fantasy literature. So too, Bible introduction is a type of book. When you say that, you actually should be thinking about what you’re going to find. A Bible introduction is not only going to include a very, very basic survey, usually section by section, through a book. So it’s going to summarize Deuteronomy 1 through 4. Then it’s going to summarize Deuteronomy 5 through 11. Then it’s going to summarize Deuteronomy 12 through 26. You know, the major divisions of each book, and let the reader know what’s in those areas.

But even more, the purpose of an introduction, and this is why I’ve included it in our discussion today, is it addresses the questions: Who, when, where, why, how and what? Who? Who’s the author? Who is the audience? Who were the major figures and powers that you read about in this book? When? What was the original date of the message? When did this prophet live and why does that matter? Where? What was the physical location in the geography? Often that actually matters. To know that Deuteronomy is written—the major messages of Deuteronomy were written by Moses on the banks of the Jordan River in Moab, getting ready to enter into the Promised Land after 40 years of judgment matters.

Why? What generated this letter? If we’re talking about Paul’s epistles, what made him write this letter? What was the ultimate purpose? Just last week, beautifully, my daughter came to me and she said, “I want to talk more about baptism” and she went to John 20, where John simply says, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” And she said, “I believe. I long to have life and I want to talk more about baptism.” That’s the purpose John says he wrote the book and in my daughter’s life at age 14, the purpose is being fulfilled by the power of the Spirit and it’s beautiful.

So why did this author write? Equal alongside of the importance of why is how. How is this book communicated? What is the thought flow? What genre is this book? Is it narrative? Is it instruction? Is it vision accounts? If they’re vision accounts, is it simply predicting the future or is it doing it through symbolism? Genre matters. Are we looking at parables? Are we looking at the genre of gospel? Which is simply the retelling of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, culminating all the way to the resurrection in two stages—out of the grave and then to the right hand of the Father.

TK: So this is all before you’ve even personally opened the book of the Bible. This is all preparing you.

JD: That’s what a Bible introduction is designed to do—to help you think about the major issues of interpretation related to each book. The last issue, “what,” is simply that summarization of the content, but also the assumptions that the author may have as he’s writing. These are just the major issues, but why it’s so important is because—and especially what’s important is having the right Bible introduction because there is such a—I mean, liberals delight in writing about the Bible, but they don’t believe it’s God’s Word and so they come to very different conclusions when they don’t trust the claims of Scripture itself. When they don’t believe that God is actually able to foretell the future, so they discount miracles, they discount the major events that celebrate the work of God in his Christ. And it’s no strange reality, then, that they come to different conclusions.

If a book, for example like Isaiah, is foretelling lots of things about the future and naming specific players like Babylon before Babylon is even a major playing power on the world scene, then it’s easy for the liberals to say, “Well, maybe some of the book came from an original 8th century Isaiah, but much of the book came later,” and so they call him Deutero-Isaiah or even Trito-Isaiah. You know, they have multiple authors that they want to attribute to this book. And yet Scripture’s claims direct the reader much differently. So you want to have the right introduction, but what this does is it helps you understand the major issues related to biblical interpretation, so that when you go to pull a commentary off a shelf or you’re in Half Price Books and there’s a sale and you wonder, “Is this a commentary worth buying?” because you—say you’re getting ready to do a series in your Sunday school class on the book of Daniel and you have taken the time to read your Bible introduction chapter on Daniel. It’s set the stage to let you know that there’s many people that don’t believe, because of the way that Daniel with such specificity foretells the future…

TK: He had to come later.

JD: That’s right, it has to be after-the-fact prophecy, that is, it’s written to look like prophecy, but actually it’s not. And what that means is they separate the book from the actual time of Daniel during Israel’s exile in the 500s BC. And so, knowing that, when you enter in—or for example, many will discount that Daniel could actually be talking about the real Messiah, Jesus, in Daniel 7 or Daniel 9, where he’s actually called the Messiah—knowing that that’s an issue that liberals are going to denounce, well, you’re in Half Price Books and you find this commentary on Daniel and you could open up to the introduction to the commentary, which is very much like a chapter in an actual Bible introduction. And you could see what are their perspectives on authorship. Or you could jump to Daniel chapter 7:13 and 14 that talk about the Son of Man receiving the Kingdom and all authority in the universe from the Ancient of Days and see: Did they ever mention Jesus? That would give you a perspective on where this commentary is going theologically, and the way that it interprets Scripture.

That’s the usefulness of a Bible introduction. It helps you evaluate. When that introduction is written by a conservative who holds high the authority of Scripture, then that should be a solid tool for helping you evaluate what others are saying, because that introduction is going to summarize the major perspectives out there and clarify why it is that we hold the Bible’s claims to be true.

TK: Would you, Jason—for you, if I was looking for a good introduction to a book, I’m going to start preaching through Joshua, something like that. Could I find that in my study Bible? Does that count?

JD: Oh, that’s a great question. The introductions in a study Bible—two great study Bibles for example, the ESV Study Bible by Crossway, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible by Zondervan. The first was edited by Wayne Grudem. The second, edited by D.A. Carson. These are exceptional tools with a whole cast of conservative Christian biblical authors writing the notes that introduce each of the biblical books and the notes at the bottom of each page. Those notes and those introductions are supplying in brief exactly what a Bible introduction is actually accomplishing. It doesn’t go into as much technical detail, but for a teacher who is ministering week by week—a Sunday school teacher, a small group leader, a pastor who is just wanting a quick summary of the major issues at play—those would be great tools to go in and get a sense for how should a conservative be thinking—someone who holds high the authority of scripture, using those two—either of those two study Bibles—you’re going to get a good helpful sense for how conservative Christians would respond. But I have to say even with those two volumes, there are certain introductions written by certain evangelicals that are more conservative than others. And so those are the challenges for multi-author volumes. But as a whole, the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible—those introductions and those study notes are going to be solid and conservative almost anywhere you look and worth trusting. They’ll give the good signals for the most part that will then give you a tool for entering in and considering which commentaries do I want on my shelf.

TK: Let’s use that, Jason. Let’s move to the section of commentaries and you’re actually a person who has written commentary, so what as an author, what is your job as a person writing a commentary? So when you signed to write your commentary on Zephaniah, what’s your job? What are you supposed to get to us, the readers?

JD: Oh, that’s great. So let me just remind you before we end, I want to make sure I give some tangible Bible introductions.

TK: Oh, love it.

JD: Maybe I’ll do that just now so that we don’t forget, and then I’ll answer your commentary question. For Old Testament, I think the best Old Testament introduction is by Eugene Merrill, Mark Rooker and Michael Grisanti. It’s called The World and the Word. The World and the Word. Published by Broadman and Holman, and it covers the entire Old Testament and it addresses all those who, what, where, when, why, how questions in very faithful ways, with conservative conclusions that I just think are solid. They’re fully aware of the breadth of biblical discussion, they talk about it, and then they evaluate it from a conservative Christian perspective.

TK: Is that one written at a level if you didn’t know Hebrew, is that accessible? That volume?

JD: It is accessible, but it’s thick. It goes into a lot of detail. One might want to pick up the volume I’ve edited, What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About for a quick synopsis. That book is focused more on the message of each book, but at the beginning I have a chart. It takes up a whole page that answers the who, where, when, and why questions for each book. And I wrote all of those introductory units in order to capture all the major issues that are addressed in a larger introduction like The World and the Word.

TK: Yeah, I’m looking at that right now. Super helpful. You would be able to—it’s one page, you’d be able to read through on Genesis for instance in like 2-3 minutes.

JD: That’s right. That’s exactly right. So on the New Testament side, I would get D.A. Carson and Douglas Moo’s An Introduction to the New Testament. That’s just what they call it. And that’s exactly what it is. These are two absolutely conservative, faithful, Christ-loving brothers who have partnered, each in their own specialty, and given us this introduction. But then they have a shortened volume, which might even be more helpful for those who are preparing, you know, ministering week by week. It’s less technical and it’s just called Introducing the New Testament: A Short Guide to Its history and Message. So those would be the tools from an introduction side that I would encourage people to get.

Now back to your question regarding commentaries. What you said to me was as a commentary writer, what am I seeking to give readers?

TK: Yeah. What’s your job?

JD: And that is significant. It really depends on the type of commentary. Not all commentaries are equal and with a book like Zephaniah, I’ve written study Bible notes in the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible—that’s one type of commentary. I’ve written the Bible Backgrounds commentary on Zephaniah. And then I’ve written a short 50-pager and then I have something more like 400 pages. So every different commentary is actually addressing different needs.

So let me just overview the different kinds of commentaries that one could find and the different kind of categories that a person who’s getting ready to do lesson prep needs to be thinking about. First of all, you need to know that there is a vast array of theological perspective—liberal, conservative, and evangelical—when it comes to commentary writing, it’s just a sad fact that not everyone who writes a commentary on Scripture believes that it’s actually Scripture. And so that doesn’t mean that we can’t benefit from certain things that a non-believer would write, but you need to be aware of the perspectives, the worldview that the biblical author, the presuppositions that—not the biblical author—the author who’s writing this commentary is coming with.

So there’s different theological perspectives, but there’s also different depth and target audience. And as an author of a commentary, I need to know: OK, who are we writing for? Are we writing for homeschool parents to be able to guide their kids? Are we writing for small group leaders who may have no formal theological training, even pastors who may have no formal theological training? Or am I writing for those who I know have already taken Hebrew and Greek? The languages in which the Bible was originally written. So those are big questions, so the depth and target audience—is this a pastoral commentary written for all audiences? Or is it a more technical commentary that is written for a more select group—advanced students of the word or scholars?

No matter what, I would hope that the author of the commentary is actually doing their work in the original text, that they themselves are speaking out of a pool, a reservoir of deep personal study. But then being able to draft what they’re writing at all different levels.

TK: Right.

JD: For all different audiences. But there’s different kinds of commentaries. Some commentaries that you’ll pick up are actually—they were originally sermons that were preached in the context of the local church, and so often you’ll get the commentaries that OK, Deuteronomy is 34 chapters and there are 34 units—each chapter had a sermon. That’s just how the author crafted. Whereas semi-technical or technical commentaries are going to be more thought-based and wrestling with thought-for-thought and trying to communicate the lasting significance.

The nature of a commentary—some commentaries are solely designed to give historical background information on a passage. They’re not designed to give the message of the text, and those can be helpful insofar as they help us understand the passage and the message of the passage rather than distract us from the message of the passage. Some commentaries actually are written solely designed to focus on grammar and translation, and they go no further. They never get us to the message. Other commentaries are only focused on the message. So they’re like theological discussions about what’s going on, but they never get down into the technical details.

All of those different elements could be useful. I think the very best commentaries, whether they are liberal or conservative or evangelical, the best commentaries are those that try to do a very thorough job of interpretation that take us deep into a passage. They don’t have to mention Hebrew and Greek, but it’s obvious they’ve done their work there and they are wrestling at all different levels of exegetical questions and they are guiding us through the author’s flow of thought and then ultimately putting us into the context of that passage, both not—three different layers of context. The close context, that is the immediate context within the book. Then the continuing context, meaning there’s previous Scripture that’s involved and how has that previous Scripture informed our reading of this passage? How could that previous Scripture have informed the author? But then the complete context is what God gives us as the ultimate author of Scripture, including how later biblical authors are reflecting on your passage.

And the best commentaries will cover the gamut from understanding genre, thinking about structure and translation, moving all the way into historical and literary context dimensions, whole Bible theology, doctrine, and then why it matters.

So to find a commentary that does all of that can be very challenging, and to find one that attempts all that from a conservative Christian perspective can even be more challenging. But that’s the most ideal commentary.

TK: How would you find, for instance, because most people don’t have somebody they can just call up and say, “Hey, tell me your best commentary on the book of James.” Is there a place that, you know, an Internet site, something that would give you an idea of “Here is the safest, best route for James,” for instance, or whatever, for a conservative believer?

JD: There are. I’m looking up my resource right now. One helpful site is called bestcommentaries.com. Bestcommentaries.com and what’s helpful about it is you can type in, for example, the Gospel of John. So choose John’s gospel and it comes up with a series of commentaries. They’re rated. But they’re not only rated, they clarify: Is this a technical commentary? Is this an evangelical commentary? Is it semi-technical? And by semi-technical it means this author has wrestled hard himself or herself with the biblical languages but the body of the commentary isn’t going to major on deep issues of Greek and Hebrew. In fact, you probably won’t even see any Greek and Hebrew in the book, but it’s dealing with major issues of interpretation and also focused on theology.

So here I just opened up bestcommentaries.com. It lists the top three commentaries and this is just from one perspective, but I believe that you’ve got a group of conservatives who are standing behind the shaping of this website and it notes that D.A. Carson’s commentary on the Gospel of John, Leon Morris’s commentary, and Craig Keener’s commentary are the top three. I think that’s a very, very helpful resource.

Then there are—on the New Testament side, D.A. Carson has written a little book called—oh let me see if I can find it—New Testament Commentary Survey. So here you have one of the leading New Testament evangelical Christians alive today, and he has given us his own survey of New Testament commentaries. There’s a comparable one by Tremper Longman in the Old Testament. And so a little bit less conservative, but still extremely helpful where they’re actually walking through book by book in the Old and the New Testaments and offering perspective on which commentaries and why these commentaries as opposed to others.

Those are a couple or three different potential tools to help people be thinking about which commentaries. In my own Old Testament survey What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About, at the end of each Old Testament chapter, I gave a list of three to five commentaries that I would encourage people to go to on each book of the Old Testament. That would be another place that one could look as you’re readying to teach through a key book.

TK: Now, Jason, what would you—you are, let’s say a pastor, you’re a small group leader. And you are going to be preaching teaching through a certain book. How do you use a commentary? And I think it would be—you actually have a funny story about a camping trip, I think with commentaries too.

JD: Well, yes, how I use a commentary today is very different than how I used to use a commentary. When I was just first starting out in my theological training, I didn’t know much of anything. I didn’t know the content, I didn’t know the message. I didn’t know the interpretive issues. I was so much a second-hander. I was dependent on everyone else. That meant I was dependent on the study Bible notes, and I was dependent on the commentaries.

TK: Me too.

JD: So yeah, there was a funny time where we—I was in a church, getting to lead my very first small group and there was a men’s hike and we were going to go hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and that is with our backpacks. Hike up 4 hours, stay at a lodge for the night, do some hiking in the mountain and then come on down. Enjoying fellowship, enjoying time in the Word, and I was like, I don’t know that I can go. I’ve got too much prep. If I go on this men’s hike, that’s the time I’ve devoted to preparing for my weekly small group Bible study and I don’t know what to do. And Teresa said just go and you can take your resources with you. So what did I do? I packed like four or five massively thick commentaries. Put them in along with, believe it or not, a 10-pound bag of potatoes because all of us men were going to eat really good on the mountain and anyone who came into our lodge was gonna eat with us. So we had steak and we had salad and we had potatoes. And commentaries. And so I got up on the mountain and all the guys are out enjoying the beauty of God’s creation, enjoying fellowship with one another. And I’m in the room trying to stay focused. And I’m so dependent on these commentaries…

TK: That’s awesome.

JD: …because I didn’t know how to study the Bible and—but the challenge—so commentaries are tools. I write them and I think in every generation we need men and women who are led by the spirit of God to be serving the church through the writing of these tools, people who are specialists in, you know, books like Romans and books like Malachi and so that those who are on the front lines serving week after week in the Bible studies and in the small groups and in the sermons, when they’ve got questions, they can find the right answers. The sad thing is I, as I’ve engaged commentary…

TK: Right.

JD: Some we don’t need, just another commentary that’s written in a short amount of time that says so much of the same things that are out there. We need commentaries that are bathed with, with long, hard mulling over the Scripture, bathed in personal encounter with the living God through the text. And written in a way that sings, written in a way that helps people encounter the living God. So that’s my prayer as a commentary author that I can write in that way.

TK: Yeah, you can’t—you can’t write or you shouldn’t write about things of the heart and the God of the universe in a dispassionate way, like you’re holding everything at arm’s length. It’s really dishonoring.

JD: In the same way that Jesus could confront the Pharisees and say they sit on Moses’s seat—listen to what they say from Moses, but don’t follow their actions. They were hypocrites. There can be hypocritical commentary writers too. God help me. But the reason that we write these commentaries is to serve ministers who are engaging in teaching the word that come to a question, come to a crisis. Most commentaries are not going to be read cover to cover. I would hope that if a pastor was getting ready to teach through Zephaniah, he may be able to take, you know, over—he’s thinking about September, we’re gonna start a five-week series in Zephaniah and sometime between now and September, he would take the time to read my 20-page introduction to Zephaniah to take the time to walk through it, see the major issues and see how I encourage shepherds to teach the text for the glory of Christ, to gain a framework for the whole book, to know what major issues are coming. So read the introduction to the commentary when you’re getting ready to enter into a book. Know what—once you find a commentator who helps your heart sing and who helps answer the questions that you have, find out who other commentaries he’s written because you’re going to want to pick up those books. For me, names like Greg Beale, Doug Moo, D.A. Carson, Tom Schreiner on the New Testament side, these are my go-to guys. Any commentary that they’ve written, I know I will be served.

TK: Yep, yep.

JD: And so you want to gain familiarity with who are the voices old and new that are faithful expositors of God’s Word and then keep them close for when you have questions.

TK: I think I’ve had so, so many times I’m reading something, maybe a chapter in a certain Old Testament prophet or something and have a thought which sounds—uh, it sounds horrible to say it, but I thought like there’s nothing here, very significant in this chapter. That is one of those moments where a commentary can get you out of your real blind spot there of no, the God of the universe breathed this out. It’s here for a reason. You’re not seeing it. But I’ve had so many times where I’ve just not seen at all something that was there, but I couldn’t see it and I needed somebody else to show me.

JD: That’s right. So right now, at the stage I’m in, in my growth and in my ministry I use commentaries far less than I used to.

TK: Less hiking trips.

JD: That’s right. That’s right, I often will prepare sermons, never opening a commentary, but I caution young ministers from doing such a thing because you need to have a good framework for what evangelical theology is, what legitimate and illegitimate interpretations are. You need to have a good sense for what the challenges are in any given book. That’s where commentaries can be useful. But in days past I used commentaries much more. Now I’ll prepare a sermon working through the biblical text myself, tracing the cross references in the margin, and whenever I have a question, a major question I will go in. Especially on New Testament commentaries, New Testament texts, I will, because I’ve spent much more time bathing myself in Old Testament texts as an Old Testament professor, I will take more time looking at certain New Testament commentaries to make sure, am I understanding the Greek right? Am I understanding—have I missed any major things theologically? Am I understanding the flow of thought rightly? And often, commentaries will help me see things that I had not seen before, but the more time a Bible teacher can spend bathing him or herself in the text itself…

TK: Right.

JD: The more you’ll be able to not just follow what Daniel Block or Peter Gentry has to say, but be able to evaluate what Peter Gentry and Daniel Block has to say. That’s what we want to be able to do—to be so equipped with the Word of God that we can evaluate a claim that Paul House makes about the Book of Kings or about the Book of Jeremiah or Isaiah, all of which he’s written great commentaries on. I read it and I can say wow, that is very insightful. I can see it in the text that I’ve lived in. And he’s helped me see it. I missed it. I missed it. Or we can say, “I disagree with that claim because…” and we are only in a position to evaluate secondary literature that way because we first observed carefully and understood rightly, and evaluated fairly the biblical text itself. Then we’re in a position to observe carefully and understand rightly, and evaluate fairly the secondary claims made in commentaries or study Bibles. So that’s how I’d want people to be thinking about commentary use. It’s not just a guide, it’s a tool of inspiration, but also a tool to help you become more confident. You’ve got what you’re taking to the pulpit or to the small group Bible study is indeed the Word of God. Yes, this is indeed it. But you always need to have eyes to be able to evaluate what others have said. What were you going to say Tom?

TK: I was going to say you sometimes use the language of not being a second-hander but being a first-hander. Can you explain what you mean by that?

JD: It relates to that language of the primary source and the secondary source. A second-hander is one for whom—well, one that hasn’t studied and felt all that they needed to before teaching. A second-hander is someone who is much more confident to say, “Well, Tom Kelby says” rather than “God says.”

TK: Almost like a town you’ve never been to, but you’re going to talk about.

JD: Exactly. And our goal as ministers is to—I mean there’s a place early on for what we could call godly imitation, where we’re just in the process of learning. Our hearts have been awakened to new truths and I’m retelling in passionate ways all that I just gained from this podcast, from this sermon, from this lecture, from this chapter in a book. That’s godly imitation, but the goal is that what someone else has tasted and seen, you yourself taste and see, and in time you enter into the text in such a way that it’s not someone else’s interpretation of the text that is shaping you. It’s your interpretation of the text that is shaping you. It’s those kind of ministers who were able to boldly proclaim “Thus says the Lord,” who were able to teach with conviction, and when that hand is raised in your Sunday school class and someone says, “Well, I had a teacher who said this,” you can say with humility and yet with confidence, “I don’t think that is right because…” You’ve already thought about the text so much that you’re able to anticipate and respond to derailing comments. But where you also have been nurtured by the text in such a way where you’re able to say “That is beautiful and I didn’t think about it, but all that I’ve seen in this text would joyfully affirm everything that you’ve just said. That is a great application of this text,” or “That is a great insight, and I would even substantiate what that point is because of this.”

So a first-hander is one who is able to bring to our teaching what we ourselves have seen, what we ourselves have celebrated. A second-hander is one who is bringing to the teaching what someone else has seen and what someone else has celebrated, and we want to—the whole process—Ezra set his heart to study and to practice the Torah of Yahweh and to teach both statute and rule in Israel—to study, to practice, to teach. To study is to observe carefully, to understand rightly, to evaluate fairly, and then to feel appropriately about what you have observed and understood and evaluated. And then that leads to actual practice, to acting wisely and rightly in God’s world, all of that before we’ve taught. So what my goal here in making first-handed teachers is to call men and women who are—who God gives, whom God gives the opportunity to teach, to bathe yourself in the text as much as possible, to follow the cross references, to track the logic of the argument, to enter in so that you can summarize the whole passage in a single sentence. So that you understand, you have an outline that shows how the whole is flowing together so that this text has become yours, that God has spoken to you through it and you’re not just depending on what someone else has said. That’s the difference between a first and a second-hander.

TK: It makes me think—prayer for me, you and all those who are listening that that would be our prayer. Lord, help me be that. Help me not be lazy in my studies and help me, like you said, end up in that spot where I am feeling appropriately about a text, not borrowing somebody else’s feelings about a text. Jason, final thought on commentaries. They often come in series, so you can get the Pillar series or whatever and the series are written by different authors, unless it’s somebody who’s preached through a whole, you know, his whole series. What do you think about—for yourself, back yourself up a number of years and if you could think that way, would you purchase a series or would you purchase by the author?

JD: That’s a great question. For a pastor: I would encourage the pastor, if at all possible to have one full series. And then as he’s preaching through books to supplement that single series with individual best volumes. OK, so that’s where I would start. And the reason I say have one full series is because as you’re doing your devotions and as you’re going to be teaching in any given week—to be a whole Bible preacher, even if you’re preaching through, for example, the book of Jude, it’s going to be sending you all over the New and Old Testament and you may have new questions that rise and you want to be able to answer some of those questions. So having a good series that covers the whole Bible could be a really good tool.

So what I would—if I was to have a single series, I would consider—here are some options. My first series I would go to would be the new ESV Expository Bible Commentary. The new ESV Expository Bible Commentary, and I don’t even know if all 12 or 10 volumes are out yet, but they will be soon. It’s just an exceptional series and it’s not technical, but it is exegetical, meaning it’s raising good questions, but it’s not a technical series. But some other series that are very, very sound and conservative. Go ahead, Tom.

TK: Oh, I was just going to say funny. I just ordered a volume from that today.

JD: Well, there you go. The New American Commentary—it covers the whole Old and New Testament. It’s multiple volumes like around 60, so it would cost a lot of money to, you know, get the whole thing. But as a whole, it’s written by conservative Christians from a spectrum of different denominations, but solid exegesis with a high view of Scripture. The Pillar Old and New Testament commentaries—there’s actually no volumes in the Old Testament published yet, but it’s in process, but the New Testament volumes—they’re written for church leaders to be able to proclaim the message of the text, a high focus on the message of the Scripture from within the whole Bible context. The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old and New Testaments—it’s much more technical, but it really attempts to help teachers understand the flow of thought in every passage. There’s a growing commentary called the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary that focuses all on message that’s coming out with some really good volumes. Those are some—if you know when one’s looking for the foundational series—those are some thoughts that I would have up front, but then I would go to those resources that we already mentioned and purchase select commentaries in different series depending on which ones are considered the best on each book.

TK: Well, and that was why—so when I mentioned I just purchased one from the ESV Expository series, that was based on author. Today is Waltke contributed to the—Bruce Waltke contributed to the—author to the one I was looking at and that was the decider for me right there.

JD: Yes, as one teaches Scripture, you’re going to grow to trust certain individuals, and you may grow to trust them on certain things and not on other things. You might—I know that I’m going to disagree, for example, on their view of baptism, but I’m gonna benefit so much from this commentary because I know they’re going to be faithful in exegeting the biblical text, and they’re going to help stir my soul. They’re going to help answer the questions that I have. That’s why I would be using commentaries.

TK: Right. I’m not going to feel cold when I leave it and that I think all of us have probably felt that before: when you read something that you—you almost feel like, wow, it almost seems like this is so clinical and dispassionate about something that I need to feel appropriately about. So we’re looking for people who love our Savior.

JD: Amen. That’s right. I’ll add back to something we said earlier. We even in weekly sermon prep, we could get certain questions answered—certain questions, often technical questions—answered from a non-Christian authored commentary. But our hearts will sing and we will be able to recognize they’re really capturing the message of this passage most when it’s written from someone who celebrates the Bible as God’s Word, who has a relationship with Jesus Christ, who is committed to the mission of the Church, all of those elements do influence one’s writing.

TK: Well, Jason, what are you—what commentary are you working on right now?

JD: I am working on the Pillar Old Testament commentary on Deuteronomy. And delighting in that—getting to teach Deuteronomy at the graduate level in the fall and then at the doctoral level in the spring. And making my way through that book, having completed my work on Zondervan’s Exegetical Commentary on Zephaniah, so that is behind me for the most part. There will still be times of evaluation before that manuscript is published, but yeah, with respect to commentaries: working on Deuteronomy, which has been a long-time love of mine for over 2 decades.

TK: Well, God help you in that. How many years before that one will be out, do you think?

JD: I have no idea, Tom.

TK: That wasn’t meant to be discouraging.

JD: Yeah, I have no idea, but you can keep asking me and I’ll be able to give updates.

TK: There we go. There we go. Well, I hope this has been a help to you today. It is always good to hear from somebody and say how do you use these things and how do you think about these things. So Jason, thanks for sharing about how you think about commentaries and introductions and study Bibles.

JD: Awesome. You’re welcome, Tom. My joy.

TK: All right. Blessings. We’ll talk to you next time.

JY: Thank you for listening to GearTalk. For additional resources to help you study and understand your Bible, visit handstotheplow.org.