Review: ZECNT Galatians

I’m pretty picky with my commentaries. I want them to have substance without being unnecessarily technical. I want them to take the text apart, but I also want them to grasp the sweep of a text. I’m just asking for a deep but readable exploration of the text that gets the whole as well as the parts. That’s all.

I snagged a review copy of Galatians by Thomas Schreiner

. How does it measure up to my demands? The best thing I can say about it is that makes me want to preach Galatians. It hits the sweet spot: it provides just the right type of information to be useful for a preacher trying to work through a passage in the process of crafting a sermon.

This series has some great features. It gives a concise statement of the main idea of each passage, which is a great help to preachers. Why can’t more commentaries do that? Discerning the big idea is one of the most challenging and exciting parts of sermon preparation and is crucial to big-idea preaching. Of course, a commentary shouldn’t replace the preacher’s own work, but this is a nice help if it’s used properly. Not many commentaries grapple with the big idea of the passage.

Each chapter works through a passage, and contains the following sections:

• insights on the literary context
• a graphical outline of the text
• the main idea
• translation
• notes on the structure
• an exegetical outline
• an explanation of the text
• a section that applies the theology of the passage

As expected, Schreiner does a very capable job of handling the text. It strikes me as a good commentary to use as you get a handle on the text. It doesn’t go as deep as some of the commentaries, but you sure can’t say that it’s shallow.

This is a commentary I plan on using. If you’re a student of Scripture, or especially a preacher who believes in preaching the big idea of the passage, then this series is definitely worth checking out.