Matthew, Mark, Luke: Volume 8

I have come to love reading D.A. Carson. His exegesis is thorough and his harmony of the gospels, defending God's Word from liberal textual critics is superb. His style of writing is scholarly yet readable. The format of the EBC leaves much of the sources in the comments, and apts for limited notes at the end of each section rather then footnotes, which hinders the fluidity of each comment. D.A. is in the process of updating this commentary, but if you're not willing to wait, buy it used for a reasonable price.

Carson's work on Matthew may be the best modern evangelical work out there. Carson is groundbreaking in his insight and keen in his analysis. He interacts with a broad range of sources, but consistently comes down with a reasoned, conservative position. He rarely resorts to source- and redaction-critical explanations, making it particularly helpful for the exegete who stresses the integrity of the text. Carson has pride-of-place in my Matthew collection and is always the first commentary I go to when preaching from the book.

Let me start by saying that I have owned the full 12-volume set for about a year and use it quite frequently as a resource. I've used this particular volume as a reference, but have not taught through a book using this commentary yet. However, as there seem to be no competent reviews on the set as a whole, I did want to add my impressions of this terrific resource. I can say that I'm very satisfied with my purchase of the 12 volumes in this set. Every portion has been quite helpful, and this is an amazingly simple and inexpensive way to assemble a good library of commentaries on the entire Bible. Obviously the commentaries are not as thorough as one may find in other series, such as the excellent (although not yet quite complete) "New International Commentary on the New Testament" or a similar series. However, for most Christians who teach or lead small groups in their churches, this set can serve as a great resource to get started with, and one that can easily be supplimented with specific volumes that treat a book of the Bible in greater depth as those books are needed. Additionally, this resource can be more useful than a larger volume in situations where one is interested in looking at a few chapters of scripture at a time, or where one just needs to understand what a verse or two might mean. Thanks to the very clear and practical verse by verse organization, it's a terrific tool to do just that. Also, I will add that (at the time of this writing) it should be possible to buy the entire set for around $150 or less, so I would suggest shopping a bit if you plan to purchase all 12 volumes. Strongly recommended.

I'm a youth pastor whose preaching through the book of Mark right now. The Expositors Bible Commentary is always concise and helpful in hitting the main issues I need to talk about to give a well rounded view of a given passage, without getting into overkill that kids can't handle. It's a valuable resource. Paul Boyer