To use biblical commentaries most effectively, the preacher must turn to these resources with specific objectives in mind. More specifically, he should use the commentaries to confirm, correct, clarify, or supplement his interpretation of the passage. He should also use them to wrestle with exegetical questions that are still unanswered and interpretive problems that are still unresolved. 

As a political science minor in college, one of my favorite classes was an upper-level course on Constitutional Law. Throughout the semester we read and interacted with dozens of judicial opinions in which Supreme Court justices explained their interpretation of the Constitution and their application of its principles to the various cases brought before them. But amazingly, there’s one thing we never read throughout the entire semester—the U.S. Constitution!

Sadly, some preachers take a similar approach to preparing their sermons. They devote hours and hours to reading commentaries on the passage they’re preparing to preach, but they spend very little time in the biblical text itself. For too many preachers, reading and regurgitating commentaries has become a substitute for exegesis and expository preaching. In contrast, the ideal approach is for the preacher to thoroughly engage with the biblical text firsthand and consult the commentaries only after he has studied the passage for himself.

The opposite error, of course, is to ignore the commentaries altogether. Many commentators are faithful teachers of the Word, given to the church to lead God’s people into a clearer understanding of the Bible. Consequently, to ignore their insights is to reject the blessing of divinely gifted teachers in the Body of Christ. As D.A. Carson writes, if you don’t use biblical commentaries, “you are failing to tap into generations of stimulating thought undertaken by Christians and others who have come before you, so you may overlook important things that you should not miss.”

To avoid both extremes, the expository preacher must learn to use commentaries in a way that supplements and enhances his own exegesis of the biblical text without allowing them to replace his own personal study. The following guidelines may help the preacher maximize his use of commentaries in the process of clarifying the divinely intended meaning of the biblical text.

Choose with Care               

Because it is neither practical nor necessary to read every commentary on a given biblical passage, the expository preacher must be very selective about which ones to use. In constructing his list of commentaries for a given biblical book, he should keep in mind that different commentaries have different strengths and weaknesses, as well as different points of emphasis. Some highlight the big-picture flow of thought in the biblical book, while others focus on the details, but both approaches can be helpful to understand the meaning of Scripture. For this reason, the exegete may want to consult several commentaries with different strengths and points of emphasis. The best recommendations usually come from like-minded friends who have faithfully studied and preached through the entire biblical book, having used several different commentaries in the process.

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