What William Barclay did for the New Testament/׳ wrote Allan Galloway, "was to rescue it from the experts."
Barclay's eighteen-volume commentary, wending its way paragraph by paragraph from Matthew through Revelation, is as insightful as it is refreshing. Many New Testament commentary series have been published in the past century, and frankly some of them match Barclay's as far as exegeting the text. But Barclay had a unique way of bringing in parallels from Hebrew, Greek, and Roman culture, as well as digging into the derivation of the Greek words. That's why his commentaries have sold an unprecedented 1.5 million copies and have been translated into many languages.
His orthodoxy can be questioned on several important doctrines, and that can be disturbing, but even conservative readers buy his books. Why? Because he did such a unique job in helping the reader understand Scripture. His colleague Allan Galloway explains it this way: "He renewed the New Testament's availability to the plain man. This was done without any sacrifice of his own scholarship or scholarly standards."
A Scotsman, Barclay was ordained in the Church of Scotland and was a parish pastor for fourteen years before joining the faculty of Glasgow University, where he taught for twenty-seven years. Besides his professorial duties, he conducted the college choir, had a successful religious TV series, wrote a long-running column in the British Weekly, and wrote more than fifty books.
In the introduction to one of his books he says, "I am well aware that there are those . . . who will think that some of the things in it are mistaken and misguided. I can only say to them that... I have found the Jesus who is the Saviour of men and who is my Saviour. . . . This is what I believe, and this is how there came into my life the new relationship with God which
is the very essence of the Christian faith and of tire work of Jesus Christ."
Barclay began the commentary series "almost accidentally/׳ he says. The Church of Scotland had asked him to write something on Acts, and so he did. Then they asked him to write about another New Testament book. "As these columns went on, the idea of the whole series developed. . . . The whole aim of these books is summed up in Richard of Chichester's famous prayer: They are meant to enable men and women to knowjesus Christ more clearly, to love Him more dearly, and to follow Him more nearly."
Few scholars have equaled Barclay's meticulous researcti into the everyday life of people in New Testament times. One scholar 7 remarked snidely, "William Barclay? Isn't that the fellow who 1 tells you what Jesus had for breakfast?" Well, yes. Barclay seemed
to know all there was to know about the daily habits of the Jews of Jesus' day—even their menus.
His commentaries quote relevantly from a wide range of ancient and modern literature. As he talks about "adoption" in Ephesians 1, he details the Roman laws of the time. A few verses later, on deliverance and forgiveness, he quotes Seneca, Shakespeare, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch.
When he expounds on the parable of the woman who lost the coin and swept her house to find it, he describes the typical Palestinian peasant's house, with only "one circular window not much m ore than about eighteen inches wide," and the floor covered with dried reeds and rushes. Then he gives two reasons why the woman was so eager to find the coin: perhaps due to her extreme poverty; or because "in Palestine the mark of a married woman was a head-dress made of ten silver coins linked together by a silver chain."
Jesus once said, "Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old" (Matt. 13:52 rsv). That's William Barclay.