It's been a long time since I've started a NEW teaching series over a NEW book of the bible.  After preaching 100 sermons out of Matthew's gospel I got a little comfortable.  Though I'm sad to see the Matthew series end I'm especially excited, and very anxious, to get started in the book of Acts!  

          How could any christian not be fascinated with the book of Acts?  This book of the bible tells us how church began.  In our study we'll get to see the amazing works of the Holy Spirit in and through the hearts of God's people.   The message in this book is beautiful, inspiring, messy, and at times even startling - afterall it is about the church.  I expect that as our understanding of the initial explosion of the gospel message grows as will our commitment to spreading the gospel through the church today! 

          During every sermon series I have the priviledge of reading through several commentaries.  As I've done with series's in the past I've listed each of the commentaries that are sitting on my desk each week as I prepare messages for the Journey congregation.  I think it's important to give credit to resources that inspire and influence us pastors as we teach and preach God's word.  I'm grateful to live in a time in which we have so much access to so many scholarly works that can give us greater understanding of historical context and linguistics.  Take a look below and feel free to read along with me!

 

David Peterson1.  The Acts Of The Apostles, David G. Peterson:  While preaching through the Gospel of John a few years back I used this same commentary series.  I decided to take a break from it and didn't use it during Matthew's gospel but have decided to pick it up again.  The Pillar commentary series is a great technical/pastoral resource to use while studying any book!

FF Bruce2.  The Book Of The Acts, F. F. Bruce:  This commentary was rated the number one commentary on the book of Acts by bestcommentaries.com.  Though the New International Commentary Series is a really popular resource to use this is my first time reading through any of their volumes.  Much like the Pillar Commentary series this series has a technical/pastoral appeal.  I'm sure I'll find myself referencing this book often!

John Stott 23.  The Message Of Acts, John Stott:  This commentary comes from a series by Stott called The Bible Speaks Today.  I've heard a lot of great things about this particular series so I decided to check one out for myself.  Stott seems to have a pretty good reputation amongst scholars though I've personally never read anything by him before until now.  This book is more of a devotional commentary which makes it easier to read through, however after thumbing through it I'm not thrilled with the print, perhaps there is a superior kindle edition.

Eckhard Schnabel4.  Acts, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Eckhard Schnabel:  I used a commentary from this series for the first time while teaching through Matthew and found it incredibly helpful!  This resouce provides a line by line, sometimes a phrase by phrase, breakdown of the greek and what it means.  I've read a book by this author in a different series regarding end-times and found him to be a very helpful scholar.  I can almost guarantee I'll be glancing at this weekly while I prep.  

Kent Hughes 25.  Acts, The Church Afire, R. Kent Hughes:  This book comes from a favorite commentary series of mine called Preaching The Word.  This is probably the 4th book in this series that I'll have read.  This resource is a devotional commentary which means it's basically sermon notes that were taken and put into book form.  Sometimes I can get stumped on how I want to preach a particular text and these books can help kick those creative gears into motion and prevent my sermon prepping from coming to a halt.  

RC Sproul 26.  Acts, RC Sproul:  Sproul has always been another favorite of mine.  He has a way of getting to what matters in the text quicker than any other communicator I've ever heard.  This devotional commentary is guaranteed to be practical and helpful in understanding the book of Acts.  You can never go wrong with a Sproul resource on the Bible in my opinion, he's always going to help you understand something.

 

Other commentaries on my bookshelf that I may pick through are:

Authentic Christianity, Studies in The Book of Acts, Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The Acts of the Apostles, James D.G. Dunn
Sermons on the Acts of the Apostles, John Calvin (translated by Rob McGregor)
Acts, Reformed Expository Commentary, Derek W.H. Thomas

 

May we all be edified by God's word during this study,

Cody Parman
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Related Blog posts:

Resources on Amos

Resources on Revelation

Resources on John

Resources on Ecclesiastes

Resources on The Solas Of The Reformation

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