Now here's a no nonsense statement on intent from the publishers of a theological commentary series.
This series of biblical commentaries was born out of the conviction that dogma clarifies rather than obscures. The Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible advances upon the assumption that the Nicene tradition, in all its diversity and controversy, provides the proper basis for the interpretation of the Bible as Christian Scripture. God the Father Almighty, who sends his only begotten Son Son to die for us and for our salvation and who raises the crucified Son in the power of the Holy Spirit so that the baptized may be joined in one Body – faith in this God with this vocation of love for the world is the lens through which toi view the heterogeneity and particularity of the biblical texts. Doctrine, then, is not a moldering scrim of antique prejudice obscuring the meaning of the Bible. It is a crucial aspect of the divine pedagogy, a clarifying agent for our minds fogged by self deception, a challenge to our languid intellectual apathy that will too often rest in false truisms and the easy spiritual nostrums of the present age rather than search more deeply and widely for the dispersed keys of the many doors of Scripture.(Brazos Theological Commentary, Series Preface, Matthew, Stanley Hauwerwas, page 12).
I've only used the Brazos commentary on Matthew by Stanley Hauerwas. It was definitely Matthew through the lens of Hauerwas, and none the worse for that. The truth is the Hermeneia Commentary is Matthew through the lens of Luz. Every commentator brings their self to the text, and the text is explored, exegeted, expounded, explained so that every commentary is treasure in an earthen vessel.
Has anyone who reads this blog, and reads commentaries, used any of the other commentaries in this series with the magnificent Series Preface as quoted above?
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