Daniel Wallace is a first-rate New Testament scholar. He specializes in New Testament manuscript tradition and curation, and he understands the persuasive power of these inspired texts. On that page, you’ll see an article by Dr. Wallace for every book of the New Testament. Each article contains an “introduction, argument, and outline” for the book.
When we want to study a passage of the Bible, we will not get it right unless we have grappled with the main idea of the entire book. And that requires doing our homework to research, as best we can, the author, audience, occasion, and structure of the book. That research is what we call a book overview.
The best method for researching this historical background is to read and re-read the entire book many times in a row. Nothing beats developing your own deep familiarity with the text as a whole.
The second best method is to find articles or commentaries that can stimulate your thinking and highlight things you could never see or grasp on your own. The trick is to find articles that give you more than trivia. Knowing possible dates and theories of authorship and reception are only as helpful as they enable you to grasp the text’s main idea and flow of thought.
