Guides to Commentaries

I wouldn’t presume to tell other lay preachers how to prepare their sermons, or how to use commentaries.  But here’s the first in what might turn out to be an occasional series of posts on my own approach.

The best one-sentence defense of biblical commentaries I have seen comes from the excellent C.H. Spurgeon:-

It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.  (Commenting and Commentaries, p1).

There are four published guides I am acquainted with:-

1.  Commentary and Reference Survey, by John Glynn, published by Kregel (10th edition, 2007).  As a catalogue of biblical and theological literature, it is very comprehensive.  It offers little by way of evaluation of the works cited, but it does classify works in the following kinds of ways: (a) there are separate listings for technical and expositional works (although the distinction between the two is sometimes slightly unclear); (b) recommended works are listed in Bold typs; (c) each commentary is designated as ‘Evangelical’, ‘Evangelical/Critical’, ‘Conservative/Moderate’, or ‘Liberal/Critical’ (but this classification is based primarily on the authors’ supposed attitude towards inerrancy, which is rather limiting).  It is overwhelmingly slanted in favour of contemporary literature.  For Romans, for example, there is not only no mention of Calvin or Hodge, but not even Murray.

2.  Old Testament Commentary Survey, by Tremper Longman III, published by IVP (3rd edition, 2003).  This provides brief descriptive/evaluative comments on each work cited, uses a five-star system to indicate its quality, and identifies it as suitable for a Layperson, Minister, or Scholar.  I would give this Survey 3 stars (out of a possible five) for usefulness.  It not only ignores older works, but also neglects some contemporary commentaries too.  The failure to mention the works by Dale Ralph Davis on the historical books of the Old Testament is inexcusable.

3.  New Testament Commentary Survey, by D.A. Carson, published by Baker Academic (6th edition, 2007).  Carson is, of course, a well-known evangelical scholar and speaker.  His opinions are wise and well-balanced, even if – with so much ground to cover – they are sometimes expressed with such brevity as scarcely begins to do justice to the works being evaluated.  Although Carson focuses mainly on contemporary literature, he does mention some of the older, classic commentaries.

4.  Commenting and Commentaries, by C.H. Spurgeon, published by the Banner of Truth Trust (orginally published in 1876).  Especially in view of the general neglect of older works in the three guides mentioned above, Spurgeon’s work is invaluable.  He has an amazing gift for summing up the value of a work in a memorable phrase or two.  When evaluating works of lesser usefulness to the preacher, he gives reign to his celebrated wit.  For example, of one set of expository sermons, he writes, ‘They will not make the hearers lie awake at nights, or cause them palpitations of heart through excess of original and striking thought.’  A commentary by one Thomas Pyle is described as, ‘a pile of paper, valuable to housemaids for lighting fires.’

More importantly, he expresses an infectious enthusiasm for the works of Calvin, Matthew Henry, John Trapp, and a host of Puritan and more recent commentators, and his comments on suc works have kept the memory (and the reading) of these men very much alive in more recent years.

Of Matthew Henry, Spurgeon says, ‘He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, terse and trustworthy.  You will find him to be glittering with metaphors, rich in analogies, overflowing with illustrations, superabundant in reflections…Every minister ought to read Matthew Henry entirely and carefully through once at least.’

Spurgeon recommends the commentaries of John Calvin as being ‘worth their weight in gold.  Of all commentators I believe John Calvin to be the most candid.  In his expositions he is not always what moderns would call Calvinistic; that is to say, where Scripture maintains the doctrine of predestination and grace he flinches in no degree, but inasmuch as some Scriptures bear the impress of human free action and responsibility, he does not shun to expound their meaning in all fairness and integrity.’ 

And Spurgeon is very fair.  Of a book by a high churchman (John Mason Neale), he says, ‘These sermons smell of popery, yet the savour of our Lord’s good ointment cannot be hid.  Our Protestantism is not of so questionable a character that we are afraid to do justice to Papists and Anglicans, and therefore we do not hesitate to say that many a devout thought has come to us while reading these “sermons by a Priest of the Church of England”.’

Planet Narnia

I’m sure that many of us will have read the famous ‘Narnia Chronicles’ of C.S. Lewis either when we were children, or, as I did, to our own children.

I can remember being intrigued by the fantastic world that Lewis dreamed up in those tales.  I found it difficult to understand that even a mind as fertile as Lewis’ could have created such a world without some kind of underlying framework.

The stories work, of course, simply as stories.  We also recognise the powerful Christian symbolism (with Aslan representing Christ, and so on).  But it is with the recent work of Michael Ward that a third layer of meaning becomes clear.

Ward’s ‘eureka’ moment came while reading a poem Lewis which spoke of ‘Winter past and guilt forgiven’ in relation to the planet Jupiter.  He realised that this perfectly summarised the plot of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  So he went back to the other tales in the series and soon found other planetary allusions.  These allusions are not related to the modern practice of astrology, but to the ancient view of the Solar System as consisting of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon, each with its own mythology.  So, Prince Caspian – the book in which war is most prevalent – reflects Mars, and The Silver Chair – with its lunatic prince – represents the Moon.

Lewis was, of course, an expert in medieval thought and literature, and he had written of medieval cosmology and symbolism in The Discarded Image.  This ancient view of things allowed him, says Ward, ’to communicate the idea of a meaning-drenched universe.’  God is Lord of all things; the entire cosmos speaks of his majesty and grace.

‘The Narnia Code’ was broadcast on BBC1 in April, 2009.

Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward, is published by Oxford University Press

The above summary is based on an article by Dayspring MacLeod in The Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland, June 2009.

Blomberg on Wright on Justification

I’ve been posting, off and on, on Tom Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.  Haven’t finished yet.  Reviews have starting appearing, and I was particularly interested to read that of Craig Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary.  Blomberg writes:

Throughout his prolific writing career, Wright has increasingly centered his attention on the breadth of the gospel message being much more than how an individual attains salvation, defined as life in heaven after death. Instead, Wright wants to keep reminding us that God’s plan for his creation extends to the re-creation of the entire cosmos, climaxing in new heavens and new earth.

Sir Marcus Loane, 14th October 1911 – 14th April 2009

Sir Marcus Loane died a few days ago at the age of 97.

He was vice-principal and then principal of Moore Theological College.  In 1966 he became Australia’s first native-born Archbishop and in 1978 became Primate of Australia.

I have a high regard for Marcus Loane’s writings, particularly the sets of short biographies that were first published up to 60 years ago.  He was writing winningly about the English Reformers, Puritans and evangelical leaders at a time when few others seemed aware of their importance and value.

The Emerging Church in its own words 4

Here’s an index to this series of posts.

Chapter 5 of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Gibbs and Bolger) is entitled ‘Living as Community’.

Wright on Justification 7

Tom Wright begins the exegetical section of his book with Galatians.  I attempt here to summarise Wright’s argument as faithfully as I can, apart from a couple of asides in [square brackets].

The self-substitution of God

How can we, who are deeply unholy and unrighteous, be reconciled with God, who is gloriously holy and righteous?  How can God express simultaneously his holiness in judgment and his love in pardon?

The astonishing, yet scriptural, answer, is, in the words of Cranfield, that

God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved.

How Can God Forgive Us?

What can the brutal death of a single Jew, two thousand years ago, have to do with us finding peace with God?  And why, if God wishes to forgive us, why does he not just do so, without all the paraphernalia of sacrifice?

As one sceptic put it: “Of course God will forgive me; that’s his job”.

It might further be objected that we are required by God himself to freely forgive one another.  Why can’t God simply do the same with us?

Why Did Christ Die? – Going Deeper

If the death of Christ was due, not merely to the actions of Pilate and the Roman Soldiers, of the Jewish people and their priests, and of Judas Iscariot, but also to the set purpose of God, voluntarily accepted by Christ, then we must enquire further as to what that purpose was.

We can begin to answer this in four stages:-

Why Did Christ Die?

Various answers could be given to the question, and there would be truth in all of them.

We could, for example, say that Christ died because of the actions of the Roman soldiers and Pilate.  The soldiers ‘crucified him’, Mt 27:32-35; Mk 15:21-25; Lk 23:26-33; Jn 19:17-18.  And Pilate, the Roman governor, allowed them to do so even though he knew Jesus to be innocent.

Darwin: a Story of Origins

The story of Charles Darwin and his discovery of evolution has become as much a part of our culture as the story of Adam and Eve before it. It has become ‘common knowledge’ that living beings have evolved over millions of years, and that we occupy no privileged place in the animal kingdom.

The story of Darwin, together with that of Galileo, marks the turning-point when science dispelled the superstitions of religion and ushered in the modern world. Evolutionary theory (for some, even more than the Enlightenment) bears the weight of our understanding about the world and our place in it.

Richard Dawkins has commented: ‘If superior creatures from space ever visit the earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilisation, is: “Have they discovered evolution yet?”‘

“God is love, and…”

Steve Chalke’s (and Alan Mann’s) book, The Lost Message of Jesus, is, I suppose, yesterday’s papers telling yesterday’s news.  Published in 2003, it generated more heat than light, and polarised well-meaning people into opposing groups of fans and critics.

It’s all a bit late to be offering a review of the book.  But I fear that its central point (that ‘God is love’ is all that we really need to know about God, and everything else must be forced through this one filter), is not going to go away.

So here I belatedly post something that I wrote a while back.