Shannon S. McKee

musings and moments

How to Choose a Commentary for Personal Bible Study

by 2 Comments

I was recently asked some good questions about how I study the Bible and how I prepare to teach books of the Bible. Part of that question involved the tools I use – like commentaries. I thought I’d take a sec to offer a few thoughts about commentaries in general and which ones I use.

A Disclaimer

Let me start by saying that a commentary is NOT necessary to your personal study of the Bible. A Bible commentary can be used to SUPPLEMENT your personal study. It should not be used INSTEAD of personal study. Since the commentary itself is not Scripture, it’s important for the studier to weigh what she reads against other sources, as well as her own Spirit-led pondering. A good commentary represents hundreds and hundreds of hours of painstaking study and research in the original languages. It is certainly to be cherished as the considered opinion/interpretation of scholarly, Jesus-loving men and women. But, it is NOT infallible like the Scripture itself.

Of course, you’re not infallible either so getting the input of others can be helpful. Especially when you read something that is confusing at first glance. Sitting down with your pastor or spiritual mentor can be a form of commentary. That is healthy and good. I’m definitely NOT against commentaries. I just want to always encourage us toward personal study first. God’s Word was intended for the common, everyday person. His desire was to share His heart and reveal His grand story to us. Not to hide things from us or further confuse us! He didn’t make it so tricky that we can’t catch it’s basic meaning by opening it up and just reading it. So, first, try to read it on your own. Sit with your question for a day or three. Pray about it. Speak it aloud when you’re alone in the car. Journal about it. Bounce it off of a friend or group of friends. AFTER you have done that hard work yourself, feel free to go consult a good commentary.

Now, I realize that some of you may be asking, what the heck is a commentary?

To answer that, I’m going to borrow from the gotquestions.org website: “A Bible commentary is a series of notes explaining the meaning of passages of Scripture. A commentary may explain the language used in a section of text. Or it may discuss the historical background. Almost all commentaries attempt to explain the passage in terms of some system of theology. In other words, the commentary is an explanation of how the Bible fits together and what it means. Since a Bible commentary is written by human authors, it will reflect the beliefs and perspective of those writers.”

If you have a study Bible, those little notes in the margins are a form of commentary because they further explain the original text. You can also buy a separate, more in-depth commentary that covers certain sections of the Bible.

How do I decide which commentaries I’ll use?

Commentaries are usually categorized according to their purpose:  technical (for in-depth exegetical study), pastoral (for sermon prep), and devotional (for personal study). There are no points for picking a technical commentary to look smart or scholarly. They’re usually more expensive and most of us just don’t need to go that heady. Rather, the majority of us probably need the devotional or pastoral commentary, not the technical one. I often pick a pastoral one, since I’m preparing to teach.

When I go to teach a book of the Bible, I buy 2-3 individual commentaries.  To choose them, I consult three sources:

  1. I ask our pastors at Redemption Chapel. Listen, if I don’t trust these men and their direction on trusted sources, then I shouldn’t be going to this church. We have three godly pastors at our church. They love God’s Word and seek to diligently handle it accurately, so their input on commentaries is invaluable.
  2. I check Tim Challies’ blog. He is a pastor who has curated a list of every book of the Bible and has recommended 4 or 5 commentaries for all 66 books of the Bible. He also explains which ones are more technical and which ones are more “readable” for someone (like me) who isn’t a scholar in the original languages of the Bible (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic).
  3. I check the bestcommentaries.com website for recommendations. This helpful website is a little like Challies’ site in that it rates commentaries and provides commentary rankings for each book of the Bible. It’s more extensive and has less prose than Challies’ lists. It also has lists, or “featured libraries,” from pastors and authors.

As a general rule, these sets offer reputable devotional commentaries: NIV Application Commentary, New Bible Commentary, The Bible Speaks Today, God’s Word For You series, and The New Testament for Everyone.

If you’re in doubt, by all means reach out to a mentor or spiritual leader in your life. If you’re a woman at Redemption Chapel, I’m happy to review a resource for you and give you my two cents. I’ll be honest, you truly can’t trust everything you read. Just because it sold well on Amazon doesn’t mean it handles God’s Word accurately! And since commentaries can be expensive, you definitely want to do your homework before you buy something. If you live local, my friend Ann at Logos Bookstore in Kent is always happy to help you order something and often offers a 20% off coupon or two in her quarterly newsletter.

I hope that helps. Happy studying, friends. I pray you will never grow weary of applying yourself to the study of God’s Word.

Making the Most of Your Time

by Leave a Comment

Today marks the last day of our church’s women’s Bible study through the book of Genesis. Among other things, we have made lists, looked for repeated phrases, watched the genealogies, studied the history, noted the characteristics of God revealed in that history, highlighted key words, and looked up the meaning of words like “covenant”. Three hundred women on an adventure through these 50 chapters of this, the “Book of Beginnings”.

Fifty chapters of seeing God’s patience. His sovereignty. The way He keeps His promises. His love, mercy, and justice mingling together. His scarlet thread of redemption that started in chapter 3 and kept on throughout the book. His constant foreshadowing of Jesus. His provision for His covenant people.

I have loved watching our women go after it. Making time to read and study their Bibles. In fact, I was so inspired that when they posted on social media, I started downloading their photos to make this little collage. I love that they didn’t wait for life to slow down or their circumstances to change – they seized the time they already had. Reading and studying on the go if they had to.

I share the photos here now, because I hope you’re inspired and encouraged too. We can do this. We can tend to our inner souls and let our worldview be transformed in the small, ordinary moments of our days. A prayer breathed as we change a diaper. A verse of truth internalized while we wait at our kid’s swim meet. A big thought about God pondered while we take our lunch break at work. A moment alone with our journals before the chaos starts and everyone else wakes up. A chapter read while kids or pets climb on us. A choice to read over our letters from God while we travel (for work or pleasure). Honestly, I wonder if it’s in those spaces that God is most honored because of the intentionality and desire that goes with all those interspersed moments.

It reminds me a little bit of Brother Lawrence who learned to practice the presence of God as he went about his day. He even penned a prayer that started, “Oh Lord of the pots and pans…”

He is the God of Creation. He is the God of Covenant. And, yet, He is also the God of our ordinary moments. What a joy to know Him!

{Book Review} My Thoughts on “Girl, Wash Your Face”

by 15 Comments

I wanted to like this book. I really did. Even though I had read some bad reviews and had initially decided not to read it. Once I had decided to read it, I was hopeful that maybe the reviewers were being too fussy or too picky. That the glowing recommendations for it that I was seeing on Facebook were legit. And, during the forward, I got a little excited. In it, the author, lifestyle blogger and wildly successful entrepreneur Rachel Hollis, was describing a cycle I knew well. Maybe you know it too… the roller coaster of becoming the person you want to be. It’s a struggle, isn’t it? Some days it’s victory and purpose and passion. Other days it’s defeat and frustration and hindrance. Those days of defeat can lead us to any number of unhealthy patterns, usually rooted in lies that we believe about ourselves, our God, and the world around us. And when the defeat days outweigh the victory days, it can leave us feeling very hopeless and angry.

Her conversational tone and her insight captured those feelings well and my heart leapt a little. “She gets me,” I thought. She is very vulnerable and open about her past and current disappointments. In fact, despite all her success, she feels less like a VIP and more like a friend. So, I did take a couple of things away that I will apply to my life.

But, certainly not a whole book’s worth. In the end, I cannot recommend this book. Why? Well, for several reasons, honestly. First off, because I think you deserve better. You don’t have a ton of extra time and I love you too much to encourage you to read this book. In an effort to be brief, I’m not going to pick apart every concerning statement that she makes. And, I’m not going to disparage her as a person. She might be a great sister in Christ who just didn’t share much about that part of her life.

But, by making that choice, her book is devoid of any real power and abiding wisdom. Really, much of her advice is just worldly. It’s not grounded in anything substantial. It’s a flawed, unbiblical way to think.

Let me unpack that bold statement. Her main aim, as stated at the outset is to debunk the many lies she had embraced and replace them with one, main truth. So what is the one important truth at the heart of Hollis’ life and work? “You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.”

On the face of it, that might not be a bad aim. It depends on what you mean about happiness. In this, I found myself resonating with blogger Tim Challies when he asked, “If the key to the good life is becoming happy and if happiness depends upon overcoming lies, what rule or standard is there to help women distinguish truth from lies? She is never clear on this. She never directs her readers to a single source, guide, rule, or book meant to serve as an authoritative source on what women ought to believe and disbelieve about themselves. Instead, women are left to create their own standard according to either their own criteria or Hollis’s.”

Furthermore, when she does give examples of how she pursues happiness, it is usually based on very temporal things, as is evidenced by her vision board on her closet door where she has photos of the things that get her going every day – Beyoncé, a second home in Hawaii, and Forbes magazine. Not the deep, abiding kind of contentment and joy that comes from getting on board with God’s Kingdom vision. If you’ve written an entire book giving women advice on how to live their best life and achieve happiness, it seems a like a nod toward God and His Lordship and advancing His Kingdom ought to be a core driving force. When she does mention Him, it’s in very vague, open-ended terms that have no clear meaning.

The truth is that much of His advice is the opposite of her advice. Don’t believe me? I want you to try to imagine Jesus telling anyone that they should be the “hero of their own story.” Or that their growth and development is a simple matter of washing their face and getting on with it. Or that the end game is becoming a better version of yourself. Her prescription for growing and changing and overcoming obstacles is totally based on self-effort. And, when she does recommend getting help, it’s from a therapist or your tribe of friends or an Adele song.

She never mentions the idea of abiding in Christ or letting the Holy Spirit empower you or going to God’s Word or asking a Christian mentor for help. Oh, you give yourself grace when you fail, but in her words, it’s still on you to get back at it the next day.

Here’s the thing, girlfriends, you don’t give yourself grace. Grace comes from God. It’s less about you forgiving yourself or giving yourself a pep talk to do better tomorrow than it is about learning to tend your soul under the care of your Good Shepherd – yours is a posture of responsiveness and following the goals and vision that HE sets out. That He has, in fact, alreadyset out for you in His Word.

But, that’s exactly the problem. She doesn’t really appeal to His Word. Except once as an out-of-context prooftext for why she completed one of her marathons.

That leaves very little meat for the reader to grab onto.

Does that make all books on leadership obsolete? Does that mean that books on goal-setting and life management have to be written by Christians and dripping with scripture references? No, of course not. All truth is God’s truth and can be gleaned from even it’s written by a spiritual Guru or an atheist. But, if the author is claiming to give you insight into the one truth that is the key to life and that author is a Christian who is publishing with a Christian publishing company… the Christian reader ought to see things that resemble some of what Jesus or the early apostles say about life. And, sadly, this book is void of that.

Despite what Hollis implies, the truth is that I don’t need to work harder to have it all together and be happy. My vision isn’t a closet door with pictures of fame, power, and success. Rather, I am a beloved daughter of the living God who went to great personal expense to restore me and adopt me as His daughter. I have a new name, a new citizenship. And, now, because of that identity, I have a new nature from which I can actually choose by God’s empowering spirit in me, to make good choices from a new, pure heart. My vision is laser focused – I fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, as I run with endurance the race that HE has laid out for me. Because of His grace, I am being transformed and seeing victory in that race. I am becoming more like Him as I run. And, when I do trip and fall or pull a hamstring or get off course, HE picks me up. HE washes my face. And, my feet. He washes all of me.

If that’s not the foundation and the driving force for uprooting the lies, it’s just another person preaching good works to me. And, I left that empty life behind years ago. Because (a) it doesn’t really work and (b) it’s freaking exhausting.

Girl, please, put the wash cloth down… and let God wash your face.

If you’re looking for some alternative books or resources that do help you tackle the ups and downs of life and how to be more consistent, I have some suggestions. If you’re looking for books that remind you of your worth and value as a woman, I have suggestions on those too.  I’ll share those tomorrow. Because, let’s face it, growth is hard and managing this life feels overwhelming at times. And there are tons of lies that we believe about ourselves and others that trip us up. Rachel was dead on about that part.

A Few Good Women

by 1 Comment

I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how much I love these three beautiful women. And when I say beautiful, I don’t just mean outward (though that is true too). For now, I’m talking about the inward. These women have some precious hearts. Each one has a different story. They come from different parts of the country with different backgrounds and nuances to their lives. They each have unique gifts and strengths and passions. They have each touched my heart in different ways as I have watched them seek to live out their faith with fear and trembling before our good and gracious God.

The glue that binds us together? Our husbands are all ministry staff at our church. As the lead pastor’s wife, I have the privilege of loving on these girls and getting to do life with them. Sometimes that means just the four of us getting away for the weekend. Sometimes it means reading a book together or grabbing dinner out or huddling up together on a Sunday morning to pray for each other. Sometimes it just means texting funny GIFs to each other. However it looks, I know for sure that we need it.

Because being a ministry wife is a unique thing for a few reasons:

  1. Our husbands live pretty public lives so that often means we live pretty public lives.
  2. The health of our families can directly affect the health of our church so we each feel an extra sense of stewardship as we live out Biblical womanhood.
  3. A healthy, local church is more like a family than a job. Which is a beautiful thing. But, it also means a level of vulnerability and friendship among the staff and the congregation that I wouldn’t necessarily have with my husband’s work relationships if he were the CEO of a corporation.
  4. Ministry is demanding and sometimes very weighty. Our husbands don’t clock in and clock out. They just don’t. There are days when they come home bearing heavy burdens. Most of those are confidential issues and not things they share with us; but I can tell when my man comes home saddened by something that is happening with one of his church members.
  5. People don’t always like the decisions our husbands make or the things they say from up front. Remember #3? So, yeah, that feels kind of yucky sometimes.
  6. Spiritual battle is real. And leadership is often at the center of it.

Those are not complaints. They’re just realities. All four of us love what God is doing in our midst and we adore our church family. Thankfully, we are part of a church culture that values authenticity coupled with the gospel. So, I don’t feel a ton of pressure to be a perfect family. People are very gracious with my kids and me.

But, I’m so grateful for this little circle of staff wives who “get” me and the life to which God has called me. I love that we have each other’s backs and pray for each other and invest in each other. In the last year alone, we have cried together and laughed together and celebrated together and talked deeply about the things of God together.

It’s really a lovely thing. And, who wouldn’t want to do life with these ladies? Duh.