Which Bible Commentaries Are Grace Based?

I examined 8 popular commentaries to see how many preached grace. The results… were not surprising.

As a young preacher preparing to preach, I needed to take care that I didn’t say anything stupid.

For this reason, I would check my sermon notes against one or two of my favorite Bible commentaries. I considered these commentaries guard rails that kept me in line. I now realize they were also fetters keeping me shackled to dead works.

Pastors read commentaries, sometimes late on a Saturday in a mild state of panic. Of course, you don’t have to be a pastor to read a commentary. Many believers use Bible commentaries and study Bibles for their own personal study, and why wouldn’t they?

A Bible commentary is like having your own private tutor. With a good commentary or study Bible you can glean revelation and insight that was acquired over generations. You can get inside the head of your favorite teacher.

Bible commentaries are useful tools. By illuminating the context they help us to make sense of scripture.

But Bible commentaries sometimes perpetuate messages that are graceless, carnal and lead to dead works. To assess the extent to which Bible commentaries help or harm, I examined eight popular commentaries to see whether they preached law, grace, or a mixture of the two.

Eight Bible commentaries

I picked commentaries that are highly influential. These are the commentaries that pastors and teachers use when preparing sermons and lessons. You may have used them yourself.

To protect commentators’ identities, I refer to these commentaries by the first eight letters of the alphabet with A being the oldest commentary in my sample and H the youngest.

I rated each commentary by examining ten “shibboleth” scriptures. (I discuss the full procedure used in the accompanying study note on Patreon.)

I was not expecting to find any commentary that was perfectly grace based, but I hoped there might be one or two that got close. There weren’t. They all preached law or mixture.

One of the commentaries in my study (G) was a modern commentary that is popular with some of my friends. Among the eight commentaries, it was the least legalistic, which may explain its appeal. While other commentaries preached law most of the time, this one preached grace almost half of the time.

However, this meant the commentary was riddled with inconsistencies. Forgiveness is unconditional, but you have to earn it. You are saved by faith, but only if you act right. God loves you, but he’ll damn you if you don’t deliver.

This commentary (G) was confusing. It sounded as if it had been written by a committee of people with different views on faith and works. Its strong emphasis on works believers must do means it cannot be considered a grace-based commentary. But neither can it be considered a law-based commentary. With its muddled emphasis on both law and grace, it is a commentary of mixture.

(My study revealed a number of other interesting findings regarding readability et cetera, which I discuss in the study note.)

What now?

In my experience, Bible commentators typically preach mixture with a strong emphasis on the law and works. In all my years of reading, I have never encountered a whole Bible commentary that did not.

It seems clear that if Bible scholars are preaching mixture, then the preachers and teachers who rely on their commentaries will also preach mixture, and the church will be mixed up. Just as you can’t get hot water from a cold tap, you will never get pure grace from someone preaching mixture.

What can you do?

The number one takeaway of my study is lean on the Holy Spirit. Bring your Bible questions to the Author. The Spirit of Grace is the best Guide you will ever have. He will never accuse and condemn you or burden you with dead works. He will always point you to Jesus and encourage you to walk by faith (John 14:26).

The second takeaway is to watch what you read, view and listen to. Good teachers are a gift to the body of Christ, but not every teacher is walking in grace. Bad teachers went to Galatia preaching mixture, and when Paul heard about it he basically told the Galatians to cast them out (see Gal. 4:30). If the message you’re hearing helps you grow in the love and grace of God, it’s gold. But if it’s a muddled mix of law and grace, resist it. Stand firm in the faith and let nothing move you (Gal. 5:1).

Finally, check your Bible commentary. If it does not deliver a consistent message of grace, consider replacing it. It may be doing more harm than good. Find a grace-based Bible commentary – which is easier said than done.

I know several grace preachers who have written Bible commentaries in one form or another. But most of these commentaries are limited to a few hundred verses or a single book of the Bible. The exception is the Grace Commentary which has more than 10,000 entries covering more than 3,500 verses.

And this is is where I shamelessly plug my commentary.

Simpler is better

I have two goals in writing the Grace Commentary. The first is to offer a grace-based alternative to other types of commentary. The second is to provide a tool that is clear and easy to understand.

If the gospel is simple then commentaries should be simple too. For this reason I use small words and short sentences to provide clear and simple explanations of scripture. My motto is, the simpler the better.

I will spare you the details, but a readability assessment reveals that the Grace Commentary is easier to read than the eight commentaries in my study. To the best of my knowledge, the Grace Commentary is the only commentary that can be read by anyone with a sixth-grade education.

This easy readability may be why the Grace Commentary is read in more than 170 countries, including many nations where English is not the native language.

The results of a recent survey reveal that the typical Grace Commentary reader is a pastor or church leader. However, the majority of readers use it for non-preaching reasons (e.g., private study, daily devotions, homeschooling, getting clarity on “tough” scriptures).

Although the Grace Commentary is a work in progress, reader feedback suggests that after just three years it is already a useful tool for helping people grow in grace.

And it’s only going to get bigger and better.

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