A Good Commentary Format

I have two unique commentaries in my library, The Gospel of Luke, Expository and Homiletical by W. H. Van Doren and Studies in Romans by Thomas Robinson. What makes these commentaries unique is their format. They are not traditional commentaries that are set up as a wordy prose of the text. Instead, these commentaries give “bare bones” phrases on each verse and often, on individual words. These are “suggestive” commentaries as the material is not designed to allow a preacher to copy the material verbatim but the entries are thoughts, insights and ideas designed to stimulate thought. From the forward in Robinson’s commentary, “The Van Doren’s series of suggestive commentaries is undoubtedly unique in style. They are not verse-by-verse commentaries but word-for-word commentaries. They do not provide so much exegetical reasoning, nor do they often provide so much as a complete English sentence!”

After the “suggestive thoughts” on each verse, critical footnotes are then given which contain a lot of useful information.

Van Doren wrote commentaries in this style on Luke and John, both are also on Google Books. You can also find the Robinson commentary on Romans on Google Books.

I like this style of commentary because you don’t have to wade through paragraphs of wordy expositions, looking for useful material. You can easily scan the Van Doren and Robinson commentaries to find what you are looking for. It also forces you to put meat on these bones instead of allowing the commentator do all of your work for you.

I would recommend that you add these commentaries to your library as soon as you can.

The Pilgrim Way Commentary on Jude now posted!

My commentary on Jude is now online, in pdf format. It’s absolutely free. I hope it can be profitable to you!

Thoughts on Commentaries and Commenting

Bible commentaries are a double-edged sword. If you rely too heavily upon them, you run the risk of being intellectually lazy in your own personal study. You may also find yourself being too heavily influenced by one man’s thoughts or by a single theological system expressed in whatever commentary you are reading. Yet no one wants to ignore commentaries all together.

They are also seductive things. Nothing looks more impressive on a bookshelf in a pastor’s study than row upon row of commentaries, especially commentary sets. How many times have preachers walked into a Christian bookstore and seriously gave consideration to purchasing a commentary simply because it looked scholarly?

There is a valid need for commentaries and for commentators. We all have benefited by commentaries. I have been especially blessed by Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. My first commentary purchased was a one volume Matthew Henry, back in 1985 when I started going to church. Over the years, I have spent a lot of money on commentaries. I have also gotten rid of many that I have purchased, simply because I wasn’t getting much out of it. If it isn’t serving me, why should it cumber the ground by taking up valuable shelf space? And as I grow older in the Lord, I find myself buying fewer commentaries. Maybe it has to do with youth and inexperience that so many preachers rely so heavily on the writings of other men. As we mature, we get more comfortable with our own reasonings and conclusions, so we are not in need of a crutch as much as we were in years past.

One of my burdens has involved writing commentaries. They are the fruits and products not only of my own personal studies but also represents the gold I have mined from the writings of other men. I used to teach at Maryland Baptist Bible College (1988-1998) and I wrote my own notes for my Bible classes. I saw no need to use notes by someone else if I could write my own. My commentaries were thus born.

Over the years, I have written commentaries, in some form, on Genesis 1-12, Exodus, several Psalms, Song of Solomon, Daniel, a few Minor Prophets, Matthew, Acts (about half the book), Romans (recently revised) 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, James, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation. Of these, only Romans is in a final, “presentable” form. Everything else needs a lot of revising. That’s the current burden. I just finished re-doing Romans (it topped out at 420 pages) and now am involved in re-vamping my commentaries on John’s epistles.

The ministry of the commentator has certainly taken much abuse in recent generations. Most bookshelf space in your typical Christian bookstore is taken up with romance novels, Christian fiction and Veggie Tales. There may be a few commentaries but they tend to be of the “popular” persuasion. Hard and heavy theological works are simply not in demand. Contemporary Christian has destroyed Biblical scholarship, where people are more interested in church growth, Christian rock music and their “feelings”. Watch Joel Osteen for an example of this. But the need is still there and this ministry needs to be revived. Those of us who hold to the Book and fancy ourselves to be serious students of the Scriptures should be urging the brethren to revive this lost art. A pastor told me once that he wished more churches would support writers and commentary writers the same way they support missionaries. These brethren may not go overseas and preach, but their field is at a desk, surrounded by books, producing study materials for the church. Amen to that.

What makes for a useful commentary?
1. It should be verse-by-verse. I would love to be able to get more use out of commentaries by John Nelson Darby or William Kelly, but since they dealt with huge chunks of Scripture at a time, I find their usefulness limited.

2. It should be based on the King James Bible. Since we reject modern versions, any commentary that is based on this will also have a limited usefulness. If I think the ESV belongs in the trash can, how much of a blessing can I expect from a commentary based on that same worthless translation?

3. It should reference the original languages. I get limited use out of purely critical commentaries, but the occasional reference to the Greek or Hebrew can be useful. I put in word studies on important words in my works. I also reference the various tenses of Greek verbs, as I think one of the most important uses of the Greek grammar is to notice and apply verb tenses. I get a lot of insight out of that.

4. It should quote other writers. Commentators who are too infatuated with themselves to quote other labors who have written before them automatically limited the value of their own work. True, if I want to know what Matthew Henry thought about a verse, I’ll go to Matthew Henry himself. But if I read Henry and saw an insight that I think is useful, I’ll quote it in my work. Here is the real value of Charles Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. His own comments are good, but the gold is pulling quotes from his own extensive library. But don’t go overboard. In seminary, I read John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion twice. The annoying part (besides Calvin’s nasty attitude towards people he disagreed with) was his constant references to Augustine. Over and over, it was “Augustine said this and Augustine said that”. Whose commentary is this- Calvin’s or Augustine’s? The danger is relying too much on these other men instead of developing your own original insights and expositions. My own practice has always been to mine a verse for everything I can get out it, and then to go to the commentaries for insights and thoughts that I may have missed.

5. Don’t steal! I noticed years ago, while reading a commentary by Oliver B. Greene (I forget which one) that he was quoting large portions by Albert Barnes without quoting Barnes. That’s called literary theft, or plagiarism, and it is the unpardonable sin for any writer. If you quote a man, give that man the credit that is due him.

6. Post your work on the internet. Not everyone can afford to have a book published in a traditional way, if you can even find a publisher. But you can put up a website it and post your writings for a worldwide audience for very little cost. My material is free. If you want to charge for yours, establish a Pay Pal account and charge a few bucks. This way, you eliminate the middleman and anyone can access your material. Isn’t that what this is all about- reaching as many people as you can with a minimum of money? But I don’t write for money. I write as a ministry and for my own profit.

7. What about copyright? Personally, I’m against the idea of intellectual property and copyright. The internet will destroy it eventually anyway. You may worry about people stealing your work and putting their name on it, but it happens anyway. Universities are shot through with this, as you can download term papers, change a few words, and pass it off as original research.

8. Don’t get above your raisin’. If you are not a Greek or Hebrew scholar, don’t try to fake it in your commentary. You’ll make a fool of yourself. Don’t go quoting other Greek scholars if you aren’t in a position to critique their work. How do you know if they are correct? If you can’t evaluate it, leave it alone. And nothing is more irritating to read in a commentary than the constant refrain of “Greek scholars say…”.

9. There are several kinds of commentaries. You have devotional works (Matthew Henry) and technical ones, as well as many in-between. They all fill their purposes. Some are informal and folksy, some are formal. Some are mere transcripts of sermons, others are original research. There are many different flavors and everyone is bound to find one that suits their tastes and their need.

10. Don’t be wordy. Spurgeon speaks of a Puritan commentary just on Song of Solomon chapter 1 that ran over 900 pages. Who has time to read all of that? The Puritans are a great read but you need lots of time to do them justice. Good writers can say what they need to say in an economy of words. You can dilute a thought by spreading it out over three pages when it could have been expressed in three sentences.

11. Write! It will do your soul and your brain good. A preacher with nothing to say as he sits in front of his word processor probably doesn’t have much to say from the pulpit, either. People are so worried about exercising the body, but the brain is exercised at the keyboard, where you are forced to think and learn how to put your thoughts down in understandable and pithy ways.