The Best Books on Prayer
The Best Books on Worship
Worship Evangelism by Sally Morgenthaler
A great book that explores the power that your worship services (particularly the songs we sing) has on impacting those who don’t know Jesus. It is a call for the church to truly worship and in the midst how that will be a catalyst of attraction to see tangible affects of Christ’s love.
Emerging Worship by Dan Kmball
Exploring the creative ways we can express our worship. A great how to book of inspiration.
Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin
A required reading for all my worship leaders. Helps get to the heart of leading a congregation.
The Oxford History of Christian Worship
This is not for the faint of heart. Great for research and knowing the history of different movements within Christianity.
The Unquenchable Worshipper by Matt Redman
My favourite book on worship. It touches the heart. It draws us closer to God. It is timeless. It challenges us to greater intimacy with God.
The Best Commentaries
In this episode of MY FIVE, we look at my top five favourite commentaries and why. What are some of your favourite resources? Watch above or read below.
To find these resources click on the books below for the links.
- The Bible Knowledge Commentary by Walvoord & Zuck
This is great commentary that doesn’t go too deep, but gives enough information to give you a strong grasp of the Scripture. It is my usual go to.
Jewish New Testament Commentary by David Stern
A great commentary for getting a…(surprise) Messianic Jewish perspective on New Testament passages. It is always important to get a different perspective than your own. Stern helps me take a different perspective to get a well rounded view.
- Smart Guide To The Bible ed. Larry Richards
Smart Guide is easy to read, has the scriptures in the text, and has thoughts from different people. This is a simple interpretation, but sometimes that’s all you need. This is great as a first commentary or even as a devotional.
- The Gospel of John A Commentary by Craig Keener
This is not for the faint of heart. In this commentary Keener goes deep! If you really want to understand a text in a rich way Keener’s commentary is for you. Don’t think you can simply breeze through. It’s heavy, but it’s good. Keener isn’t a boring writer.
- John Calvin Commentaries/Keil-Delitzsch Old Testament Commentaries
While I do enjoy these two commentaries from time to time the point is not the commentaries (however, they are good). The point is that you need something that is outside of your context. For me Calvin is from a different time period, country, and theological persuasion. The same can be said of Keil-Delitzsch. What is important, and as I stated earlier, in order to have a well rounded view you must engage in different perspectives. That means your current, 21st Century, (maybe) Western/Northern hemisphere, racial/gender perspective needs to look outside the voices just like it. After all neither Jesus, Paul, Peter, or Moses were from our century, Western/Northern, or race of most of the commentators out there.
There are so many great tools. I know I am always looking for more. What are some of your favourites? Comment below!
joshtrombley.com 
Joshua, thank you for doing this blog. When I started Bible College back in 2014, I was asking our Professors if they would post their favorite commentaries. Never happened. When I teach Bible Studies, I identify the commentaries I did cite in my lesson so that people can see what resources are out there. From time to time I do get asked what are good commentaries.
When I first became motivated to understand the Bible more seriously in the early 90’s, my future brother-in-law was studying at Eastern Pentecostal Bible College in Peterborough and I believe “The Bible Knowledge Commentary by Walvoord & Zuck” was a required resource at that time. He bought me both commentaries as a gift. That commentary set helped me grow in my faith because the Bible finally started making more sense to me.
In my retirement, I started Bible College and I am now buying and using commentaries that are more in depth. I have three commentaries by Craig Keener and I have cited his work several times in recent courses.
I also own Stern’s Jewish New Testament Commentary, as well as Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible. Like you, I appreciate Stern’s observations from a Messianic Jewish perspective, and his use of Hebrew for the Biblical names of people. Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible is not a commentary, but in the introduction there is a lot of good information about the Tanakh and B’rit Hadashah (Old Testament and New Testament) from his perspective.
I don’t own the Keil-Delitzsch Old Testament Commentaries (set of ten volumes), but I am aware of the authors and the commentary is available for free on Bible Hub. The commentaries were originally published in the 1800’s, and have been translated from German and published in English editions in the 1980’s and revised again in the 1990’s.
Old Testament commentaries and Christian texts on Jewish history published before the mid 20th century should be approached with caution. Since 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have both affirmed historical (pre-Enlightenment era) Christian views, and has influenced changes in our understanding of New Testament Judaism.
I have two commentary sets that I am building these days are:
(1) “Encountering the…” Eight Volume Set
(2) “Exploring the …” Six Volume Set
Randy
LikeLike
Great insight. Yes, the Dead Sea scrolls did change the game. Saying that the old commentaries share a different perspective, while it should not be the only source, it is still essential.
I’ll have to check those commentaries out. Thanks.
LikeLike