Lesson 3: The Contextual Horizon (1)
Where Can I Find One?
We have an embarrassment of riches in the English language. Commentaries abound! But this gives us a problem: choice. How in the world can you choose which commentaries to use when you’re studying a book? Attempting to use all of them is a recipe for overloading your brain and blowing a circuit! But not all commentaries are created equal; some are amazing, some are mediocre, and some are downright terrible. How can you find the right ones?
Buy One
I recommend buying commentaries individually, based on solid recommendations, rather than buying them by the set. The quality of sets is mixed, and they are expensive.
Commentary surveys
Two helpful places to look for recommendations are D.A. Carson’s survey of New Testament commentaries and Tremper Longman’s survey of Old Testament commentaries. Even though Best Commentaries (see below) provides ratings for commentaries, there aren’t any pithy comments on each book listed. But both Carson and Longman give praise and critique where they feel it is deserved, based on their widely acknowledged expertise. Here is a free online list of both Carson’s and Longman’s top commentaries for each book, taken from the books described above.
Bibliographies
If you already have a commentary on a specific book of the Bible and are looking for more, try looking at its bibliography, which will contain resources the commentator used and recommends.
Online lists
There are several websites as well that recommend the best commentaries on each book of the Bible. Ligonier Ministries has a top-five list for each book. Canadian blogger Tim Challies has compiled a top-commentary list as well, based on expert recommendations. The Best Commentaries website ranks commentaries based on ratings by published journals and individual reviewers, weighted by academic credibility. Best Commentaries also has collected lists of highly-recommended commentaries from John Piper, John Glyn (who wrote and maintained Kregel’s Commentary and Reference Survey), Jim Rosscup (retired Professor of Biblical Exposition at TMU), the Denver Seminary Journal, and from Köstenberger and Patterson’s Invitation to Biblical Interpretation.
Get a Free One Online
You can get many high quality, copyright-expired commentaries for free online, if you know where to look. The best website I know for this is Reformed Books Online. They list over 2,000 out-of-print commentaries. They include all commentaries that Spurgeon highly recommended in his Commenting and Commentaries, and many, many more. Most wonderful of all, almost every commentary includes a link where it is available for free reading or download on websites like Blue Letter Bible, Study Light, or Bible Gateway.
I should warn you here to use older commentaries with caution when looking at the historical context of a passage, or for linguistic details about Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. This is because our knowledge of history and of languages has improved a great deal over the last century or so because of archaeological discoveries and improvements in linguistics. However, older commentaries still contribute strongly regarding contextual details, as well as Christ-centered applications.
Hard Copy or Digital?
As far as purchasing commentaries once you have decided upon them, you need to choose between buying physical or digital copies. One thing missing in digital books is the ability to flip through to find something you underlined, or just to page through the book and enjoy it.
But if you like studying with digital books, Logos and Accordance are great resources. Their power is in their ability to link commentaries with Bibles, their search capabilities, and their capacity to have several commentaries open at once, which would take up a lot of physical desk space!
Logos 9 Basic (free; contains 40+ resources, including Lexham Bible Dictionary and Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown’s commentary on the Bible; all Bibles are $9.99 to purchase)
You do get what you pay for: the bigger package, the more bang for your buck.
Accordance 13 Lite (a limited version of the full program; contains an ample number of resources, including the ESV, Easton’s Bible Dictionary, and Matthew Henry’s condensed commentary)
Sometimes you can get commentaries quite cheaply on Kindle. This isn’t as handy as Logos or Accordance, since Kindle is an app for reading rather than for Bible study. However, the low prices I have occasionally seen have made buying Kindle books worth it to me.
I have included at the bottom of this page an annotated bibliography of commentaries on Haggai, since the focus of most of the remaining assignments will be on that book. However, many of the commentaries listed are on the whole Bible, so you will find it useful for other biblical books as well.
Are you feeling a little overwhelmed? Even though we’re jumping into the deep end in this step, I’ll make sure you don’t drown! I’ll guide you a step at a time through the process of discovering historical context.
Also, don’t feel nervous about being asked to spend lots of money on commentaries. There’s an annotated bibliography of commentaries at the end of this step, including many free resources online. We don’t require you to purchase any commentaries for this course. However, we have included Volume 7 of the ESV Expository Commentary series for free, which includes Michael Stead’s commentary on Haggai!
Here are the steps to follow to be able to access it:
- Go to books.biblearc.com.
- Follow the instructions given.
- Now Volume 7 of the ESV Expository Commentary series will appear in your library! You can click on “Haggai” in the menu on the right to access Stead’s commentary. You can read, highlight, and copy and paste text within Biblearc Books.
But if you can afford to buy a commentary or two from the bibliography, you will not regret it. You will be the owner of a current, up-to-date resource, written with God-honoring scholarship, which will strengthen your understanding of Scripture and nourish your love for Christ.
Haggai Annotated BibliographyList of best commentaries on Haggai, with descriptions and recommendations