3 Rules for Using Commentaries

The Logos Talk blog has a great, brief article with “3 Rules for Using Commentaries.” These rules are similar to the “4 Mistakes When Using Commentaries,” which I posted in 2012. But the Logos post goes into more helpful detail.

The 3 rules are:

1. Bring opinions to the commentary.
2. Bring questions to the commentary.
3. Bring out a variety of commentaries.

These are great rules. If we don’t bring our own opinions, we allow the commentary to do our thinking for us. If we don’t bring our questions, we may spend a lot of time looking up irrelevant information. And if we don’t bring out a variety of commentaries, we’ll be simpletons, easily persuaded by one man’s opinion.

My favorite part of the article is when the authors describe their seminary professors, who prohibited commentary usage until the students had done their own work first. The reason?

They wanted us to converse with commentaries, not merely listen to them.

Great advice! Check it out!