PERHAPS THE READER WONDERS why I have undertaken this project. During my senior year at Covenant Seminary, three fellow students were occasionally asking me for advice about commentaries. Eventually, they suggested that I write up a guide to Old Testament commentaries. That guide was well received, and, as a big surprise to me, the OT Department decided to reproduce it for distribution to the students. There was a revision later that year (1989) after Professors Phil Long and Gerard Van Groningen read the paper and made suggestions for its improvement. When New Testament Professors George Knight and Karl Cooper mentioned that they would like to see a NT counterpart, I quickly demurred. After all, there were several NT bibliographies, and Dr. Knight had been giving out his own fine survey for several years. When another faculty member made the same request, I decided to attempt the NT analogue and was able to produce it while completing my course work for a second degree at Covenant.
A few years later (1993) I received several inquiries from friends and Covenant faculty about another revision and decided to make the effort. Revised editions were released in October 1993, June 1994, June 1995, June 1996, July 2001, January 2005, June 2009, and October 2010. I am gratified that, again, a revision has been requested and that Zondervan has taken on this project.
Some may also be curious about my qualifications. I offer no great erudition in OT or NT scholarship. What I do have is a longstanding interest in theological bibliography, the blessing of a substantial personal library (in part inherited from my father and grandfather), and a sincere desire to help others make full use of the study tools available today.
After seminary I was privileged to pastor Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Morganton, NC for five years. I left the pastorate in 1996 to become a missionary lecturer in Africa and first served at the Theological College of Central Africa (Zambia), eventually as Academic Dean. More recently I have been on faculty at seminaries in Namibia and Kenya. The reader will detect both my pastoral and academic interests. I have often identified myself as “evangelical, catholic, and Reformed” (Nevin) in theology, as a churchman owning the heritage of all Christian history, and as being influenced by both Continental and British Calvinism.
No author profit was ever made on this guide through the first eight editions; I sought to be the reader’s servant for Jesus’s sake (2 Cor 4:5). A portion of the author proceeds from the 9th and 10th editions is sent to the Scholarship Fund of Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology, one of the premier theological schools in English-speaking Africa, offering degrees from the bachelors level to the PhD. Recently I served as Head of the Biblical Studies Department at NEGST, a constituent school of Africa International University.
It is a joy to acknowledge and thank those who have encouraged me and supported this project over the past twenty-five years. First of all comes my loving family: my wife Elizabeth and our three grown children, Martyn, Beth, and Daniel. They have sacrificed a great deal over the years for me to have time with the books and are far more precious to me than all the vols. in the Cambridge University Library (over seven million at last count). Let me add to the list my mother and my brother Bill, for his example of fine theological scholarship and words of encouragement.
Also deserving thanks are past and present members of the Covenant Seminary faculty, staff, and administration, especially the Librarian, Rev. Jim Pakala, who gave assurances several times that the project was worth the effort. It is gratifying that the Covenant Bookstore managers kept the Guide in print through eight editions (1989 – 2009). Thank you, Hugh Collison and Nick Gleason. I was glad to work with Ed Eubanks Jr. of Doulos Resources in producing the 9th edition. Now it is a privilege to have the guide published by Zondervan, and I express my thanks for the late Verlyn Verbrugge’s assistance over the last two years, and to the editorial team, Nancy Erickson in particular.
Finally I am grateful to the Warden, Librarian, and staff of Tyndale House for the opportunity to study in Cambridge for about twelve weeks. The final revision work was done there. To one accustomed to making do with fewer library resources, Tyndale House is “like the garden of Eden” (Ezek 36:35).