John’s Letters:
An Exegetical Guide for Preaching and Teaching (Big Greek Idea Series)
by Herbert W. Bateman IV and Aaron C. Peer is an interesting new volume – and beginning
of a series – in the interpretation of the New Testament.
The series was created with the concern that most people
don’t have a solid, working, understanding of biblical Greek. This series will be a help to the pastor who
has some knowledge of biblical Greek, as well as “the overloaded professor,”
and the seminarian (14). Although the
authors provide their own translation of the text at the rear of the text, the
book is designed to highlight “the big Greek idea” of each section of text and
put the tools out there for these persons to use to interpret, explain, and
preach the text. It is not for the
average lay person – some knowledge of biblical Greek is necessary.
The text opens with a table of contents, charts and
sidebars index, list of abbreviations used, and then a length introduction
which explains how to read the text and the authors’ basing it on the use of the
clausal outline of the text.
Then the text begins in earnest with an introduction to
each letter before it, followed by the big Greek idea, structural overview,
outline, and clausal outline for each section of text. Interspersed are syntactical, lexical, semantical,
theological, text-critical and grammatical “nuggets” to help in understanding
the translation and interpretation of the text.
The volume ends with a bibliography and a “nugget” index.
If you are looking for a commentary that gives your
denominational interpretation, this is not it.
If you are looking for a commentary that helps you work through the
Greek to understand the bid ideas and, thereby, the text, you will find this
very useful.
I am interested to see future volumes.
I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange
for an honest review.
[This review appears on my blog, Amazon.com, Kregel, and
Goodreads.com.]
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