I once asked Dr. Ferguson advice on selecting commentaries for use in preaching and teaching. He gave some wonderful counsel.  He told me to buy the best commentary on the book I happened to be preaching through, and then he added, the best book may not be the one with which you have the most in common theologically.  I understood him to be saying, “Read and think” not “read and mimic.” 

For me, as for so many others, Sinclair Ferguson has been and continues to be one of my heroes in the faith. While a Ph.D. student at Westminster Theological Seminary he was one of my professors. What is more, while he was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, I would listen to his morning and evening sermons week by week for almost ten years. So, when he published Some Pastors and Teachers it was a book I greatly anticipated and one that has not disappointed.  Let me give you an example.

I once asked Dr. Ferguson advice on selecting commentaries for use in preaching and teaching. He gave some wonderful counsel.  He told me to buy the best commentary on the book I happened to be preaching through, and then he added, the best book may not be the one with which you have the most in common theologically.  I understood him to be saying, “Read and think” not “read and mimic.”

So, when I opened the pages of Some Pastors and Teachers I read and re-read with delight.[1] However, the article that caught my eye was the one originally published in 2009 in a book titled Sola Scriptura. It is the chapter titled, Scripture and Tradition.  It was written during the two years in which Dr. Ferguson was preaching through the book of Romans in Columbia, SC.

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