Organising sermon preparationPosts in this series
If you do use commentaries, the sheer number of resources that are available can be overwhelming.
In the past I think it was cost that prevented ministers from consuming vast amounts of literature on a sermon text. Hence Spurgeon's classic, 'Commenting and commentaries' (Available from Amazon or free here), was written to help you get the most bang for your buck. If you managed to avoid the dodgy commentaries, it was money saved for other commentaries.
However with the blessing of the internet, I think it is time that now prevents ministers from reading large amounts - you only have so many hours before the sermon is to be preached. Therefore there is still a place for being discerning with your commentaries - you must make sure you spend those few hours you have reading only the very best resources.
So how can you make sure you read only the best?
Firstly, still heed the advice of the Spurgeons.
Listen to those who have read the best and the worst and learn from their investment of time.
And secondly, reject those you doubt have the Spirit of God in them - if someone starts making dodgy conclusions, reading them is a waste of time when there are much better resources available.
So how do you organise your commentaries?
In order to only read the best, I keep a list of which Bible commentaries are good and bad.
To do this, I use an Excel spreadsheet with separate tabs for commentaries on different books of the Bible (e.g. Genesis) and commentaries that are on the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, and commentary series (e.g. ICC).
I then have separate columns for 'Author', 'Call number', 'Critic' and 'Comments'.
If it is a New Testament book I am preaching on, I then sit down with DA Carson's book, 'New Testament Commentary Survey' (Available from Amazon), and fill in the 'Author', 'Critic' and 'Comments' columns using Carson's comments. If it is an Old Testament book that I'm preaching on, I use Longman's 'Old Testament Commentary Survey' (Available from Amazon). I then do the same with Spurgeon's 'Commenting and Commentaries' which covers the whole Bible.
Then in the 'Call number' column, I give the code 'Unsuitable' to all those commentaries that Carson, Longman and Spurgeon do not recommend.
I then go through and add the code 'Joel' to those commentaries that are left and which I already own in my own library.
I then add the code 'PDF' to those commentaries that I have downloaded off the internet (I'll speak about this more in subsequent posts).
I then add the call numbers to those commentaries that are available at my local theological college library (I later print this out and take it with me each week to the library).
Finally, I add the code 'Not Found' to those commentaries that are left without a call number of any kind and I haven't be able to locate. I periodically search for these again, usually once a year.
I then sort the spreadsheet by the 'Call' number column which neatly groups commentaries into relevant libraries e.g Joel, PDF, College library and Unsuitable.
The list is then maintained by adding new commentaries with my own comments. And sometimes, I even reject commentaries recommended by Spurgeon and Carson as I read them and add the 'Unsuitable' code to them.
The beauty of the list is that once you have the spreadsheet up and running, whenever you come across a commentary you can quickly see whether you are aware of it and if you have any comments on it.
To help you visualise what I am describing, below is an example from my spreadsheet for New Testament book of Hebrews.
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