Commentaries

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Jonah: God’s Scandalous Mercy is the latest in the Hearing the Message of Scripture series put out by Zondervan and takes to heart the purpose and intent of the series. The series seeks to “help serious students of Scripture, as well as those charged with preaching and teaching the Word of God, to hear the messages of Scripture as biblical authors intended them to be heard” (p. 9-10). Youngblood, associate professor of Biblical Studies at Harding University, gives readers an extremely well done and accessible commentary on Jonah.

Overview

The commentary begins with an author’s translation of the book of Jonah. This is followed by an introductory section that includes the author’s purpose in writing the commentary (p. 25), the canonical context of the book, historical context, and literary context. The historical context section is very helpful for the person seeking background info on Jonah. Because the biblical book has so little setting given within the text, many assumptions have arisen over time. Youngblood does a nice job of cutting through the assumptions and placing Jonah squarely in a solid historical setting. The discussion of literary context is helpful as well, as the author makes some really nice observations about the structure and message of the book. Youngblood observes two problems that intersect in the book: “The first is Jonah’s inability to reconcile YHWH’s concern for nations hostile to Israel with YHWH’s election of Israel. The second is Jonah’s inability to reconcile YHWH’s justice with YHWH’s mercy” (p. 37). Immediately, the reader is given a purpose statement to keep in mind as he begins to work through the text.

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The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament is a newer series of solid, scholarly and evangelical commentaries. I am pleased to provide a brief overview of the series using Thomas Schreiner’s contribution on Galatians as an example.

The ZECNT is a commentary series whose unusual structure and features make it unique. Future commentary series will have to take this format into consideration as they try to develop a comparable model. Though these are exegetical commentaries on the Greek text, those who are either uneducated in Greek or who are loosely familiar with it will still find much of benefit. The final form of the ZECNT series “was refined over time by an editorial board who listened to pastors and teachers express what they wanted to see in a commentary series based on the Greek text (p. 9).” I believe the editors of the ZECNT have lived up to that desire.

The ZECNT series follows a seven-fold outline form for each chapter. Here, we will explain each part of the outline and provide a sample of what it looks like from the chapter on Galatians 3:26-29.

1. Literary Context

Each chapter starts out by setting the Literary Context. The context of each pericope is explained in one or more paragraphs. Following the explanation the author places the pericope within the larger context of the whole book in outline form. Example: Following Paul’s argument in Galatians 3:1-25 concerning the nature of the law in relation to the promises of God, Paul now moves to show “that the law as a pedagogue is now passed since all believers are now God’s sons and daughters in Christ through faith (p. 253).” All believers, Gentiles included, are the promised sons of Abraham by virtue of being in Christ who is Himself the one true offspring of Abraham (3:16).

2. Main Idea

Second, following the literary context is the Main Idea. This section seeks to summarize the central message of each pericope in a few sentences. Example: Schreiner states that the main idea of Galatians 3:26-29 “is that believers are the offspring of Abraham by virtue of their union with Christ Jesus (p. 254).”