The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (ZECNT) series rings the bell again with this fine volume on Colossians and Philemon by David Pao. The more volumes in this series I peruse, the more I like the ZECNT format. The scholarship is conservative and the outlook warmly in sympathy with the biblical text. Pao holds his own with the other great scholarly writers in the series.

The Introduction to Colossians is ideal. He argues beautifully for traditional conclusions while succinctly sharing various viewpoints. Still, he doesn’t let this volume drown in the weirder scholarly drama that we sometimes find in modern exegetical commentaries. He agrees with the long-accepted conclusion that Paul is the author and feels that Rome is the most likely location of the letter’s origin. He describes well the audience in Colossae and explains the circumstances behind the text. He sees both a Jewish legalism and syncretism at play in Colossians. He provides a helpful outline and bibliography.

The commentary on Colossians follows the usual format of discussing literary context, offering up the main idea, diagramming the text, discussing the structure, providing an exegetical outline, followed by substantial commentary on the text along with a section on theology in application. This format really serves up exactly what the pastor needs and is helpful throughout. I found his comments perceptive.

Philemon is given a similar Introduction followed by the same type of commentary format. Though I do not really agree with his rejection of seeing Onesimus as a runaway slave, it’s all still very helpful. I’m more in sympathy with his conclusions on Colossians, but this is still a superb choice for Philemon.

This commentary ranks up there with Douglas Moo  and Peter O’Brien and is newer than either of them. Add to its high rating its economical price and you have a winner here. I highly recommend it!

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.

Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner team up to provide this commentary on First Corinthians in the highly respected, conservative Pillar Commentary series edited by D. A. Carson. At this point, I’ve used most of the volumes in this series, and even reviewed several of them, and can’t deny that this series is one of the premier ones on the New Testament. Many of us look forward to when the entire New Testament is covered.

This volume on First Corinthians is huge, at just under 900 pages, on this one of the more challenging books of the New Testament. After a lengthy bibliography, the authors dive into an Introduction. With a confession that First Corinthians is one of Paul’s most difficult letters, they then jump into a discussion of the background of the church in Corinth. That section is quite well done. Next, they examine the identity and aims of the apostle Paul. They conclude that “Paul’s aim, then, is to bring about true worship and obedience among the Gentiles, to the glory of God”.

In the discussion about the interpretation of the book, they outline the structure of First Corinthians. They feel “the four main elements of 1 Corinthians are (in order) wisdom, sexuality, worship, and resurrection/consummation”. A section that was a bit harder to follow was the biblical theological framework of First Corinthians. They pull in many parallels from the Old Testament. They discuss verbal aspect and finally conclude that a “biblical/Jewish approach provides a solid basis for appreciating the structure and coherence of Paul’s response to Corinthian problems and also does greater justice to the fundamentally Jewish character of Paul’s response to the Corinthians”. You will have to decide for yourself if you see the depths of the Jewish character that they do.

The commentary itself is outstanding and of the high-caliber writing that we are used to finding in the Pillar commentary series. When checking several of the more notorious problem passages, you will find the authors arguing clearly and helpfully. I really liked what they had to say! I’m sure scholars will love this detailed volume. On the other hand, this volume is likely the top exegetical commentary on First Corinthians available to pastors today.

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.

Leslie Allen is a veteran commentator who has contributed commentaries in several important series. Here in the Old Testament Library (OTL) Allen has replaced an earlier weak volume in the series with this widely-recognized contribution on the Book of Jeremiah. Having used some of his other commentaries, I found here the same quality of efforts as I saw in earlier projects. The book is even considered more conservative than several in this series.

After a nice bibliography, Mr. Allen begins a rather brief Introduction for this commentary. I appreciated his sharing his six guiding principles of approach to this commentary. I wish all commentators would so succinctly tell us up front the approach they’re going to take. He gets into translation and text and then quickly moves to the genre. He feels that “oracles of disaster constitute a backbone for the book”. He discusses the quotation formulas that you will encounter in Jeremiah. He barely addresses style before he jumps into literary development. Though I could not agree with his conclusions about the LXX and MT, he did carefully state his reasons. His comments on structure were helpful, and then he ends the Introduction with a discussion of purpose in the complex Book of Jeremiah. He remarks that the “purposeful trajectory of overriding grace that stretches over the book like a rainbow” is key.

The commentary was superior to the Introduction. In each passage, he gave the text with exegetical notes, followed by a paragraph on the passage as a whole, and then with more comments on individual verses. Though I could not always agree with his conclusions, you could tell that Mr. Allen was a season scholar with a full grasp of all the issues.

I found this book to be one of the more important in the OTL series, and as I said before, more conservative than some of them. Anyone trying to secure the most important commentaries on Jeremiah for a first-class library, simply must add this volume. I recommend it.

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.

This volume by Brevard Childs replaced three volumes by Otto Kaiser and Claus Westermann in the popular Old Testament Library (OTL) series. It was written in the twilight of his career after his highly-regarded commentary on the Book of Exodus in the same series. Most reviews I’ve seen feel Mr. Childs is the best commentator on Isaiah that we have from the critical camp. After reviewing this book myself, I can see how that came to be believed by many.

In what seems to be a unique approach, Mr. Childs gives an introduction to the Book of Isaiah as a whole, followed by the introduction to Isaiah 1-39. Then he gives an introduction to Isaiah 1-12. That’s followed by commentary on that section and in chapter 16 we have an introduction to Isaiah 13-23. That pattern is continued with separate introductions to Isaiah 24-27, 28-35, 36-39, 40-55, and 56-66 followed by commentary on that section. I’m used to seeing Isaiah chopped in either two or three parts by the critical side, but this was rather unique. Don’t worry, though, following the commentary is still straightforward.

Mr. Childs did not stick to a canonical approach as much as he did in his commentary on Exodus, and gets more into sources and other redactional critical ideas. In his introduction to the whole book, he discusses the approach that he will take. More than in many commentaries I’ve read, I think it’s highly important that you allow him to explain for himself the track he will follow.

In the commentary itself, you will find much of what you might have come to expect with Mr. Childs. There’s still redactional discussions, but real exegetical help and textual insights abound throughout. The commentary is not as long as you might expect for a book the scope of Isaiah, but it still offers the reflections of a season scholar at the end of his career.

We can’t deny that this volume is an important one on the Book of Isaiah today. Though I follow a more conservative path than Mr. Childs does, I still find value in this book and look forward to interacting with him in future studies I do in the Book of Isaiah. It’s worth checking out.

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.

This volume is the first of a planned two-volume set covering the Books of Samuel. It’s part of the highly respected New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT) series published by Eerdmans. This series never had a volume on the Books of Samuel until this volume by scholar David Toshio Tsumura came along and we eagerly await the volume on II Samuel. Though some reviews I’ve read do not give this volume as high marks as others in the series, my own review finds this volume to be underrated.

Even those who are slightly critical of it must confess that Mr. Tsumura  is expert on philological and grammatical matters. Scholarly students will especially appreciate its depth in the different critical approaches all the way down to the current hot topic of discourse analysis. Though he agrees with some things in critical areas that I could not, his approach would be considered quite conservative by most standards.

His Introduction begins with a basic explanation of the title of the book and then launches into a discussion of the text itself. He is quite positive about the value of the Masoretic text and compares it to the LXX and Dead Sea Scrolls. He confesses that we cannot know who wrote the books of Samuel since Samuel died in I Samuel. Though he agrees with more than I could, he still finds many of the theories of redaction in the text to be based on questionable assumptions. He digs deep into the historicity of the Books of Samuel and feels confident about most of it. He gives good background material on the Philistines, the Canaanites and all their influence including the gods of the area, and the prevalence of necromancy.

From there he goes into grammar/syntax and discourse analysis and shows us his specialty. He even addresses the poetry that can be found in the Books of Samuel. The section on literary structure and themes was well done as was the brief section on the theology of Samuel. The introduction ends with a detailed outline and a select detailed bibliography.

The commentary proper is quite full and a real help to those studying this book. There is more of an emphasis on philological matters than theology or application, but as I said before, the book is better than some people give it credit for being. It actually stands up well with other volumes in the NICOT series and I recommend it.

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.