Bible Reading and Reading Commentaries

I love to read biblical commentary. It has been my habit since my seminary training. I did read commentaries before that. But I read it for the sake of getting information. Reading a commentary, for me, is a spiritual act. It is a dialogue with Christian scholars/theologians who devote their time and energy to know the Scriptures truly and deeply. In Take and Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Vancouver: Regent, 2000), Eugene Peterson says, “I read commentaries the way some people read novels, from beginning to end, skipping nothing. I admit that they are weak in plot and character development, but their devout attention to words and syntax keeps me turning the pages…I relish in a commentary not bare information but conversation with knowledgeable and experienced friends, probing, observing, questioning the biblical text” (pp. 78-79).

I enjoy reading the Bible along with commentaries. The analysis and interpretation of commentators enrich my understanding of the Scriptures. But they don’t dominate my own interpretation and implication that I draw from the text. It is always a dialogue.

It is a good spiritual habit to develop if we want to dig deep in the word of God. For me, reading the Bible and a commentary are two sides of the same coin. When we read the Bible, we either read Chinese or English. Chinese or English Bible is the translation of the original languages (Hebrew, Greek, and some Aramaic). Each translation is the result of the exegetical labor of others. They don’t give you all the details about the exegetical choices. They make all those decisions (they are usually good decisions) for Bible readers. Reading a commentary (a good one) allows us to see the process of decision making. Commentators show you why and how. We often read the Bible quickly as consumers.  Reading a commentary can slow us down in a great extent. Once we are able to be slowed down in reading the text, we start to eat the Book slowly and meditatively.

Reading the Bible and commentaries is a pastoral act, for translation is a pastoral act. Bible scholars translate the Bible into different languages so that people can encounter the revealed word of God in vernacular languages. It is a pastoral act because people can’t understand God’s word without translation. Reading a commentary is like conversing with a pastor who knows what he/she is talking about, unlike many pastors on Sunday pulpit today.

Someone asked Walter C. Kaiser Jr., former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, “If you ended up on an island by yourself and were only allowed to bring three types of literature to read, what would you bring?” He said, “The Bible, a good commentary, and a magazine.”