New Commentary!
This is a rehash of an old post, redone to announce my new commentary that’s just come out: 1–2 Timothy, Titus: A Theological Commentary for Preachers.
I’m frequently asked by my students about commentaries I employ in my preaching prep.
My son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless,
and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.
Ecclesiastes 12:12
Qohelet notwithstanding, I do have a variety of commentaries collected over the years—no complete single series, but bits and pieces of several. But honestly, for preaching purposes, none of them, IMHO, have helped beyond foundational exegesis. What is painfully lacking in many of these works is an understanding of the theological thrust of the slice of text (pericope) employed in a sermon.
(Those interested, please browse through my articles on this page for more on pericopal theology, what the author is doing with what he is saying.)
Instead, what one frequently spies in commentaries is what I call “shotgun exegesis” (exegeting everything in sight, following every rabbit, creeping up every burrow, smoking out every mole). As a consequence, preachers are inundated with data, but left in the lurch without guidance as to how to proceed towards a sermon.
So I lament with Thomas Long, “The Use of Scripture in Contemporary Preaching,” Interpretation 44 (1990): 343–344:
The preacher’s desk can quickly be covered with Ugaritic parallels and details about syncretistic religion in the Phrygian region of Asia Minor. It is hard to find fault here; every scrap of data is potentially valuable, and it is impossible to know in advance which piece of information is to be prized. So, we brace ourselves for the next round of exegesis by saying that it is necessary to pan a lot of earth to find a little gold, and that is true, of course. However, preachers have the nagging suspicion that there is a good deal of wasted energy in the traditional model of exegesis or, worse, that the real business of exegesis is excavation and earth-moving and that any homiletical gold stumbled over along the way is largely coincidental.”
A BHAG (i.e., “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”) on my part is to produce a series of commentaries on every book of the Bible that goes through the text of Scripture pericope by pericope, looking at what the author is doing with what he is saying, explicating the theology of each pericope. I believe that it is only from this entity that preachers can develop valid application of a given pericope in the lives of listeners. To this end, the a fifth BHAG production (with three biblical books) is now available: 1–2 Timothy, Titus: A Theological Commentary for Preachers (for the rest of the commentaries in this series, and for my other books, see the sidebar on the right of most pages of Homiletix, and click on the icon of your book of interest).
(And, now that I have 7 books of the Bible done, at the rate of one every 2–3 years it will take me only another 110+ years to achieve my BHAG!)
Beyond publisher’s blurb, ordering info, etc., on this page you’ll find a link for a free download of a chapter from the commentary. Bon Prédication!
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.