The Best Commentary on the Bible Is the Bible
Begin with a hard passage. Peter is writing about Christ's suffering for sinners when he turns, almost in passing, to something that has puzzled careful readers for centuries.
“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.”1 PETER 3:18–20 · KJV
Who are the spirits in prison? When did Christ preach to them, and what did He say? You will not settle those questions by staring harder at three verses on their own. You settle them, as far as God has made them plain, by letting the rest of Scripture speak. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible.
Last week we learned to draw truth out of a text rather than read ideas into it (Handle with Care). This week we learn the first great safeguard of that work: no verse is read alone, because God gave us one Book. We will come back to Peter's spirits in prison before we are done.
Train your ear to hear the whole counsel of God, not just isolated verses.
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For Deeper Study
- Basic Bible InterpretationAmazon Roy B. ZuckA practical, readable guide to grammatical-historical interpretation, with steady attention to context.
- Christ in All the ScripturesAmazon A. M. HodgkinFirst published in 1907, a book-by-book survey of how the whole Bible points to Christ, the principle of Luke 24:27.
- Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the BibleAmazon James W. SireA clear catalogue of the ways verses are pulled from their context, published in 1980.
- Nave's Topical BibleAmazon Orville J. NaveA classic collection of passages arranged under more than 20,000 topics, useful for gathering what the whole Bible says on a subject.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Foundations of Interpretation
Hermeneutics is how we learn what the Bible means, not just what it says, so that we draw truth out of the text instead of reading our ideas into it.
Open Doctrine