Knowledge Library

Study Tools

The practical instruments: commentaries, topical indexes, and how to use them well.

Scripture first

Ezra 7:10 · 2 Timothy 2:15

Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach it. Tools serve that order: seek, obey, teach. They never replace it.

What this shelf holds

  • Commentaries from the pastoral to the technical, topical Bibles, concordances and reference collections.
  • The habits that make them useful: read the text first, read it whole, and check what you are told.

How to use it

  • Form your own reading of the passage before you open a commentary. Then let it correct you.
  • Where commentators divide, note the division rather than picking the one you like and calling it the meaning.

What this cannot settle

A commentary is one believer's reading, however learned. It carries the weight of argument and evidence, never the authority of Scripture.

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7 entries on these shelves

Reference works

Each of these is named so you can open it and check us. Each carries what it is good for and what it cannot decide.

Every entry below is labelled with the kind of evidence it is, so a lexicon is never mistaken for the text and a commentary is never mistaken for a conclusion Scripture has drawn.

  • An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments

    Theological interpretationOffered for weighing, not for receiving · Matthew Henry, 1710 · Public domain

    Devotional and pastoral exposition of the whole Bible.

    Use forApplication that stays close to the text and presses it on the conscience.

    CautionPastoral rather than technical. It rarely weighs textual or historical questions, and it moralises where the text is silent.

  • Commentaries on the Bible

    Theological interpretationOffered for weighing, not for receiving · John Calvin, 1540 to 1564 · Public domain

    Close exposition of most of the canon, alert to the flow of the author's argument.

    Use forFollowing the logic of a passage sentence by sentence.

    CautionReformed throughout and openly so. Where he settles a disputed doctrine, note it as one historic reading among others.

  • Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

    Theological interpretationOffered for weighing, not for receiving · Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, 1871 · Public domain

    Brief verse notes across the whole Bible with attention to geography and custom.

    Use forA fast check on what a difficult clause is likely doing.

    CautionIts brevity hides the arguments. Do not treat a one line note as a settled conclusion.

  • Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

    Theological interpretationOffered for weighing, not for receiving · Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, 1866 to 1891 · Public domain

    Detailed Hebrew exposition of the Old Testament.

    Use forGrammatical and lexical questions in an Old Testament passage.

    CautionDemanding, and it argues with nineteenth century critics whose positions the reader may not know.

  • The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

    Theological interpretationOffered for weighing, not for receiving · Compiled, attributed to Thomas Scott and others, 1836 · Public domain

    Roughly half a million cross references, verse by verse, with almost no comment.

    Use forLetting Scripture interpret Scripture: the closest thing to a map of the Bible's own connections.

    CautionA reference is a suggestion, not an argument. Some links are verbal rather than theological; test each one in context.

  • Nave's Topical Bible

    Biblical cross-referencesSupports the text, never settles it · Orville J. Nave, 1897 · Public domain

    Around twenty thousand subjects with the verses that speak to each one.

    Use forGathering the whole biblical witness on a topic before drawing any conclusion.

    CautionThe topic headings are a human arrangement. Read the passages in their own context, not as a list of proofs.

Back to Scripture

The order of authority

Scripture · Biblical cross references · Original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek · Historical, cultural, geographical and archaeological background · Trusted biblical reference works · Explanation and application

Read how Audela weighs each rung

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Verse-by-verse teaching with historical context, and a prayer to close. Nothing else in the email.