"Always remember, when somebody comes up with something new,
it's usually wrong. We are to be plagiarists of the same information that
God gave the first Christians." -- Dr. Matthew McMahon, aPuritansMind.com

 

12 March, 2007   comments: (0) Back To The Bible   Bible Commentaries: Don't Be a Lone Ranger My collision with an Emerging Church blogger last week provides a suitable backdrop for a discussion on the value of bible commentaries. This is always a controversial topic with some folks, and I do admit that there are deep ditches that we can fall into on both sides of this road. On the one hand, the risks of over-using commentaries are all too obvious, but if you don't use them at all, you might just end up making the same kind of mistake that we recently encountered. I eventually removed the link that I posted last week as the author proved to have a propensity for revisions. In fact, in the two days that followed, the post that I was linking to on his blog had grown from 6 paragraphs to over 20, with his additional paragraphs serving no other purpose than to put a spin on what had been said. Originally however, before all of his recent modifications, this Emerging Church blogger was attempting to piece together a series of isolated prooftexts to help him make the case that Christians should never make judgments of other Christians. That's a fallacy refuted by Bob DeWaay in his Defining the Believer's Biblical Call to Judge. I think we all understand the dangers involved in overuse of commentaries. We should make a Holy Spirit guided effort to understand the bible all by itself, without constantly looking to study notes or commentaries for all of the answers. With that said though, commentaries (good ones) should play an important role in our bible study. I came from a church background where everyone would "hear from God" to help them decide what pair of socks to wear every morning. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea. I didn't know anyone in that denomination that actually owned a bible commentary and used it regularly. In fact, not too long ago one of them rebuked me for using one such "book written by man". I was only half-serious when I responded by suggesting that he should stop listening to his pastor's teachings then, after all - he is just a man! He didn't buy that; I guess the fact that a commentary is in written (book) format causes some distinction for him. The bible scholar Bernard Ramm made a good case for the need for commentaries; he drives home the point that there are some things you will never learn about the bible unless you consult "the books of man" (as my friend called them). Ramm said: "Suppose we select a list of words from Isaiah and ask a man who claims he can bypass the godly learning of Christian scholarship if he can out of his own soul or prayer give their meaning or significance: Tyre, Zidon, Chittim, Sihor, Moab, Mahershalalhashbas, Calno, Carchemish, Hamath, Aiath, Migron, Michmash, Geba, Anathoth, Laish, Nob, and Gallim. He will find the only light he can get on these words is from a commentary or a Bible dictionary." Good bible commentaries can also keep you from coming up with Lone Ranger interpretations of bible verses. By that I mean, they can warn you when you invent a renegade meaning for a bible verse that not even your closest friend Tonto is going to believe! So in that way, bible commentaries actually help to promote a degree of unity, by helping to prevent 100 different people from having 100 different meanings for a given bible verse. Had our Emerging Church blogger checked with a few commentaries on the passages that he was citing, it could have kept him from believing and then promoting his false teaching on "judging". That's a fact that Charles Spurgeon talks about in this timeless excerpt to his students: In order to be able to expound the Scriptures, and as an aid to your pulpit studies, you will need to be familiar with the commentators: a glorious army, let me tell you, whose acquaintance will be your delight and profit. Of course, you are not such wiseacres as to think or say that you can expound Scripture without assistance from the works of divines and learned men who have labored before you in the field of exposition. If you are of that opinion, pray remain so, for you are not worth the trouble of conversion, and like a little coterie who think with you, would resent the attempt as an insult to your infallibility. 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. My chat this afternoon is not for these great originals, but for you who are content to learn of holy men, taught of God, and mighty in the Scriptures. It has been the fashion of late years to speak against the use of commentaries. If there were any fear that the expositions of Matthew Henry, Gill, Scott, and others, would be exalted into Christian Targums, we would join the chorus of objectors, but the existence or approach of such a danger we do not suspect. The temptations of our times lie rather in empty pretensions to novelty of sentiment, than in a slavish following of accepted guides. A respectable acquaintance with the opinions of the giants of the past, might have saved many an erratic thinker from wild interpretations and outrageous inferences. Usually, we have found the despisers of commentaries to be men who have no sort of acquaintance with them; in their case, it is the opposite of familiarity which has bred contempt. --Charles Spurgeon, A Chat About Commentaries Unless your Internet connection is older than most of the commentaries that Spurgeon used, you might be interested in watching a couple of excellent video clips on this topic; the first of which springboards off of that very quote by Spurgeon: Why should you value bible commentaries? How much should you trust the opinions of men? Includes some discussion of views towards this topic throughout church history. There are BAD bible commentaries, so be careful which ones you use. In the comments below we can recommend some good commentaries, if anyone is interested. In fact, there are a number of good ones online for free! Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.653   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism