Month: January 2023

The New Testament Commentary Guide by Nijay Gupta

/ jimmyreagan / Leave a comment

I’ve always enjoyed these books that help us by ranking the best commentaries among the nearly endless options available. Here Nijay Gupta throws his hat in the ring and offers up his choices. Of necessity, this type book is going to work best for you the better you line up with the one doing the ranking.

To be sure, I don’t align with Gupta as much as others with similar offerings. I simply wouldn’t choose many of his top choices and am baffled by some of his omissions. If you were a bit less conservative than me, he would likely fall right in line for you. I also feel his selections are more apropos for scholars than pastors though he attempts to offer advise to both.

The best value here for me is at the margins. I like to have a few works outside my box, and he offers real help in making those selections. A few recommendations he provided were totally off my radar and gave me a few good ideas for future selections.

If all such books were of the same stripe, you really couldn’t find much value in multiple authors recommending. It’s where disagreements arise that having a few of these type books on hand could help you.

I like the format more than the selections. That style of presentation makes a clearer case for what he’s suggesting than many such formats.

Commentaries cost a fortune, so some evaluations are needed. Let this title be one such evaluation.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

The Ten Commandments by Peter Leithart

/ jimmyreagan / Leave a comment

I knew I’d like this book. Sometimes you encounter an author that just seems to ring the bell for you each time you read them. Over the last three years, I’ve taken on 5 or 6 such writers and Peter Leithart is one of them. Where others strain to say something, he sees something. In what must induce jealousy from the cardboard writers of our day who take one catchy phrase for a title only to squeeze the life out of it for around 200 pages, along comes Leithart and says more in one page, or maybe one paragraph, than they do in their whole production. Adding injury to their insult, not only does he have something to say, but he can turn a phrase better than them in their pedestrian efforts where they think hip and cute is the real deal.

This one scores the high praise like others of his I’ve read. What’s funny is that it lacks polish. At times, it’s almost a stream-of -consciousness affair. He gives a line or two with some brilliant observation and then goes on to something else as if it wasn’t as grand as it really was. I say that though I at times strongly disagree with him (though that was far less the case here than in his work on baptism in this series). The book is kind of short too. You could read it quickly, though that would be the dumbest thing you could do. I’m not giving caveats, to be sure, as this book is beyond criticism, but really marveling at how he wrote and still how profoundly good it was.

I learned so much that either I didn’t actually know anything about the Ten Commandments in the first place, or we really have something special here.

I’ll suggest this to you—read just the material on the First Commandment alone and if you don’t love this book by then, then I for sure don’t know anything about reviewing books.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Reformed Dogmatics by Vos

/ jimmyreagan / 2 Comments

It’s hard to image a new title (in English at least) from a popular writer who has been dead 70 years. But that is what we have here. Geerhardus Vos is renowned for his work on biblical theology and his highly influential “The Pauline Eschatology” and here we have uncovered for us a work from earlier in his career.

First, let’s dispense with the ridiculous criticism that some throw at the pages of this volume. Some accuse the pages of being too thin with too much bleed, but they are exactly what many Bibles use with no disadvantage. If you dislike the thinner pages, you can get this title as a multi volume set. Still, this volume is attractive and will be easy to read.

With that settled, we can now consider Vos’ work itself. Be sure to read the Preface as it gives interesting background on Vos and this work of systematic theology itself. It really prepares you for what you are going to be getting. It reminds you that he was Dutch (you may be aware of Dutch Reformed theology) and specifically his “affinity” with Herman Bavick (which may also orient you). You will also see how to distinguish it from his more famous Biblical Theology.

Next, you will notice that you are reading from one teaching students. In fact, he uses a question and answer format. Perhaps they are not all the questions that you’d like asked, but they are informative and shrewdly work through what Vos was wanting to impart. I imagine his students were far more instructed than they imagined and we likely will glean far more than the simple design might at first suggest.

Further, you might have to dig to find certain subjects. For example, when I was looking for his section on the Holy Spirit, I had to seek till I found it under the Trinity. A little digging will get you to most everything you’re looking for.

His theological prowess is on display throughout. This work is not like some of the most popular systematic theologies, but aims more at clarity and profundity. Consider it a great change up as you grab your pile of systematic theologies. It’s worthy of a place.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Matthew (ECC) [2 volumes] by Walter Wilson

/ jimmyreagan / Leave a comment

Rumors were that the Eerdmans Critical Commentary (ECC) series was halted, but the release of this two-volume set proves them false. I have no idea what the future of this series is, but I found this set exceeding my expectations. To be upfront, I’m very conservative in my approach to Scripture, but have long enjoyed some of these series that take a more liberal viewpoint because they can have such interesting theological takes at points. Again, not across the board, but here and there nuggets of brilliance can be dug out. Now that you understand what I’m looking for, and the basis I will rate the book on, I can tell you that this one provides far more of it than I usually get. There’s some nonsense to my conservative eyes on these pages, but there’s a bunch of what I hoped to find too—yes, reams of it really.

By the standards of major commentaries of this length, this set has a short Introduction of 20 pages and the footnotes are half of that. Good for me, the subjects where I’d find the reasoning most subversive are mercifully short in coverage. That might be a downer for some users of this work, but since “Q” and source discussions are served up ad nauseam in other works I think you’ll be ok. He quickly segues into “genre and orientation”. It’s the orientation angle that sparkles with profound observation. If you can’t enrich your studies with what’s found here, I suspect you’re not even trying. It’s the broad swaths that we somehow miss that were most compelling. The section on theological interests and involvements are really more of the same at the same high level. And then the Introduction is over. As it turns out, like Goldilocks, I’ll call it , just right.

The commentary proper continues the style I enjoyed in the Introduction. When he makes a conclusion based on the sources Matthew was using, I’ll pass. But when such things don’t derail him, the exegesis is quite good. Even better is how he looks at the text with eyes wide open and sees so much. When you can see important details, can see trends across the book, and can tie it all together, you can help we commentary readers. This he does. I really like this lovely commentary (nice book and dust jacket) though it’s final rating may be a matter of taste. It tasted good to me.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Colossians and Philemon (TNTC) by Alan Thompson

/ jimmyreagan / Leave a comment

Now Colossians and Philemon get a turn at revision in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary (TNTC) series with Alan Thompson replacing N. T. Wright. As famous as Wright is, I prefer this new volume. Thompson studied under Douglas Moo and since Moo has turned out one of the most-important major commentaries on these two epistles, you might think of this as Moo in a more accessible offering. I do not mean by that that Thompson has merely repackaged Moo, but that even though Thompson has done his own work, the conclusions are quite similar. In this case, that’s not a bad thing. Good conclusions expressed by two different authors in their own way can be quite helpful.

Colossians gets a 25 page Introduction while Philemon gets 6. That’s on the longer side for this series. Most importantly, the conclusions are conservative and sufficiently worked out. The reasoning is solid. Most pastors and teachers will find all the introductory discussions they would care to find here. There’s nothing here that falls short and the last section in the Colossians Introduction on why Paul wrote Colossians is best. That’s really where he works out the theology rather than in its own section. Structure isn’t really addressed directly besides in an outline either. The one on Philemon was similar in style and conclusions. Unusual for these days, no diatribe on slavery as if were the whole point Philemon exists. Since slavery is just a background for the story rather than the point of the little epistle, that’s a good thing.

The commentary proper meets the standards of this series and is on par with several others I’ve reviewed. Solid and dependable are the words that come to mind. Just as in every title in this round of revision of TNTC so far, let’s label it recommended.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.