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Last year I read 45 commentaries (out of just over 200 books<\/a> of various kinds) – and I’m not a pastor. Thus far this year (as of 21st June!) I’ve read 27 more, cover to cover. As someone who works in publishing, specifically as editorial director at IVP in the UK, reading books is a part of my job, and reading commentaries relates to my role at present internally managing IVP\/Apollos’s ‘live’ series. More importantly than that profession, I’m a follower of Jesus who finds it very helpful to have a personal quiet time every day, which includes prayer, reading Scripture, reading a devotional book, and (and this is unusual, so far as I can tell) reading commentaries. I read commentaries in that<\/em> reading time in order to dig deeper into Scripture, to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, and to understand the Big Bible story better (and understand the individual books!).<\/p>\n Commentaries\u00a0tend<\/em> not to be designed to be read straight through. They are essentially concieved and published as reference works – that pastors and scholars and other readers will pick up when they want to preach\/study\/write\/think around a particular passage. For those preachers who preach verse by verse through a book of the Bible, then a commentary\u00a0might<\/em> be read all the way through – but it is likely that\u00a0multiple<\/em> commentaries will be on the desk, literally or digitally, and so the odds are smaller. On the occasion that I do preach, I’ll spend some time with the text on it’s own, before looking at commentaries I own physically and digitally, particularly if there’s a tricky thing or things going on. On other occasions I might use commentaries as secondary sources for conference papers, research projects at work, and I do hope to one day pursue a PhD in Systematic Theology, which would hopefully include some commentaries!<\/p>\n However, as alluded to above, the\u00a0primary<\/em> way I’m reading commentaries at the moment (Barring a major career change into academia, or calling into ministry) is cover to cover\u00a0devotionally<\/em>.<\/p>\n As a friend asked: Have you written anywhere on what your devotional commentary readings look like? I mean… how are you reading? What makes it “devotional”? Here’s my attempt to answer that question, lightly edited from the original twitter DM.<\/p>\n Fundamentally, I\u2019m basically not using them for reference or study or preparation (For a sermon or piece of writing) but reading them \u2018as if\u2019 they were for edification. This is probably not<\/em> how most commentaries are written or concieved. In my personal opinion a lot of quiet time notes and devotional books are not that good – particularly in terms of their meaningful engagement with the biblical text, let alone awareness of text-critical issues, context, and the state of scholarly discussionp. So I use commentaries as a friend to read a book of the Bible with. Sometimes – most notably with David fords \u2018theolgocial commentary\u2019 on John [I’ve been working on a review of this on and off for\u00a0a long time<\/em>) I end up arguing with it and so it gets demoted out of devotional time and into general reading time. I guess I\u2019m treating them as books and reading straight through.<\/p>\n That friend kindly asked a follow-up question: Sounds great. Are there any particular series formats that you find more or less conducive to that kind of reading?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPractically having the translation of the biblical text in the book helps a lot – so the Eerdmans New International Commentary on the Old\/New Testament (NICOT\/NICNT) are possibly the best (I’ve reviewed recent volumes on Numbers by Timothy R. Ashley<\/a> and Ezra\/Nehemiah by Hannah K. Harrington<\/a>). I particularly like the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series that we at IVP publish for the same reason – and it\u2019s fairly consistently where I am theologically (I reviewed Lissa M. Wray Beal’s volume on 1&2 Kings<\/a>). I like the format and physical feel of Crossways ESV Expository Commentary but have found it somewhat uneven. In general, the more ‘critical’ a commentary (for example the Eerdmans Critical Commentary, of which I’ve read and review the two volumes on Matthew<\/a>, or the Baker Exegetical Commentary, of which I appreciated Goldingay’s ‘Genesis’<\/a>) the less likely I am to be able to read it\u00a0devotionally<\/em>, without getting distracted. Generally speaking,\u00a0<\/span>the more technical the less useful because so much text is spent on stuff that\u2019s important but not useful.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nIf you have the biblical languages, then some of the more handbook-y style commentaries are going to be helpful. I don’t count myself as fluent by any means<\/em>, but my rudimentary NT Greek means I’ve found value in B&H’s Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament (EGGNT – I’ve reviewed the Acts volume here<\/a>) and am intrigued by Hendricksen’s Preacher’s Greek Companion (PGC – I’ve reviewed the Philippians volume<\/a>)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI’ve found reading commentaries devotionally to be very helpful – I wrote, but didn’t use, this blog post on reading commentaries devotionally<\/a> as part of my role at IVP, but it might give further pointers. As well as that post, I’d recommend bestcommentaries.com<\/a> as a way to find good ones – you can filter by various things.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAs ever, I’d love comments on posts like this!<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n