my life and my doctrine

I’ve been told plenty of times, that Calvin’s Institutes were written as a framework and springboard into Calvin’s commentaries. I’m ashamed to admit that it took until this morning before I really appreciated how good his commentaries are. I’ve been preparing for a Bible study on 1 Timothy 2. After checking out Tim Challies’ recommendations of commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles, I’d bought Calvin’s.

So, what was so good about it?

1. It’s easy to read as Calvin deals with the text phrase by phrase. It’s written like someone speaking, in a friendly manner, and preaching, in an exhortatory manner. Calvin wants to convince us of what he’s discovered in the Bible.
2. It’s absolutely soaked in Scripture. The most refreshing thing about this commentary is how often Calvin quotes other parts of the Bible. He clearly lets the Bible speak for itself. He demonstrates a supreme confidence in God’s word to be clear and let Scripture explain Scripture. When dealing with 1 Tim 2.6 – ‘who gave himself as a ransom for all men’, there are a couple of sentences of his explanation, though most of the paragraph is quotes of Rom 8.34; Hebrews 7.17 and Hebrews 4.14-5.3. Further, unlike many commentaries or other Christian books I read, the text of the verses are written out in full, not just referenced. More than that, they are included into the body of the text. For some reason I’m prone to glancing over quoted bits of Scripture when they are block quoted in a page of text. This decision of the editors made me read more Bible than I normally do while reading a commentary, rather than assuming I’m the studious type who will look up every reference as they come.
3. It’s relevant to his day and age. He’s not just explaining a text for a technical insight. Rather it is evident that his goal is to address the issues of the day and in particular the teachings of the Roman Catholic church that he wants to refute.
4. It’s relevant today. One of the consequences of using Scripture to explain Scripture is that it is still relevant today in our society. It’s not as though there were anecdotes of the 16th century equivalent of Facebook, sport or other social occasion.

Pick it up and read one.

Commentaries are a wonderful resource provided by those who have the time, the skills and the brains to help us understand the Bible better.  However, how can we choose one or two from the many that are written on each book of the Bible? Often we can rely on the commentary series and four worth checking out are suggested below.

The reason that I’m writing this post is to point you to a great website where someone has done a lot of hard work in checking out many commentaries. From the few books that I did look at, I’m sure I’d trust their recommendation on the rest of the books.

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/2009/07/top-commentaries-on-every-book-of-the-bible.html

(Societas, the Moore College yearbook, also has a recommended commentary list. The most recent issue with one was 2007.)

Bible Speaks Today: A tried and true series which claims a three fold goal, ‘to expound the biblical text with accuracy, to relate it to contemporary life, and to be readable.’

Tyndale/Inter-Varsity Press: Another tried and true series which was originally based on the KJV. The General Preface for the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series states they ‘will be primarily exegetical and only secondarily homiletic, though it is hoped thatboth student and preacher will find them informative and suggestive.’

Teach the Bible: A recent series backed by the Proclamation Trust in which ‘the preacher or teacher, the sermon or talk, and the listener are the key “drivers”‘.

Read/Mark/Learn:  Another more recent series, built on the Read, Mark, Learn Bible study series at St Helen’s Bishopsgate, these are prewritten Bible studies/devotions that would be of great benefit to any Christian.