Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12

I've been using Dale Bruner's Matthew commentary for almost 20 years now, and was utterly dismayed that it was out of print for over a decade. My first copies (Red vol.1, Blue vol.2) are just about falling apart, pages are taped to the cracked through bindings, they're covered with red ink from underlining the rich, deeply evangelical things Bruner has to say. After a couple of years with this commentary, I brought it to a gathering of preacher friends & told them, "Not to be extreme, but in my opinion, as far as preaching & teaching in the church go, this is the BEST commentary EVER written on a biblical book, IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH!" They all smiled, but several of them got a copy for themselves & when our group met the next year every one of them who'd gotten it said, "We agree with what you said about Bruner's Matthew & if anything, you didn't praise it highly enough!"What's so helpful is that Bruner does what every Bible teacher wishes THEY could do, he goes through the entire history of the church's readings & interpretations of each passage, what the great teachers of the church (very broadly & ecumenically understood - Bruner earned his doctorate in Hamburg, Germany; he began his teaching career as a missionary in the Philippines before a long & productive career at Whitworth College in Washington) have said & thought about a passage. As he makes clear in his introduction, he has been teaching Matthew to undergraduates but just as crucially to adult Bible study groups for over 30 years & that has kept him gloriously grounded in the relevance of Matthew's gospel to living, breathing, growing Christian disciples. He is involved in every bit of current academic scholarship on Matthew, but he always pushes the discussion on from academic issues to issues of, "What does this say to us as Christians, as disciples?" He will have you loving the Gospel of Matthew, especially the seemingly inscrutable things like Matthew's genealogy, which Bruner makes come alive: relevant, indispensable, teachable & yes, exciting! He will also (as one reviewer noted) have you checking back here when you are teaching parallel passages in Mark or Luke, because he always has an insightful comment on the differences between them & the differences they make in telling a story one way or another.The only two problems with this commentary are two other ways of saying how great it is: (1) when you read it, there is so much great stuff on every page & covering every passage that you will have to fight yourself to retain your own dignity as a teacher & resist the urge to just take it to your lectern, your pulpit & just read it line for line to your group. (2) when I read this commentary, it makes me sit & look with no small frustration at all the other commentaries on my shelves & think of all the fruitless hours I've spent poring over their pages, vainly hoping to distill just one tiny little tidbit of spiritual food I could pass along to growing disciples. I find myself saying to the rest of my wall of commentaries, "What are you all doing?! You could be FEEDING the people of God like Bruner & instead you're all spinning your wheels on things that make no difference to living Christians. You're wasting our time!" This commentary is what a commentary should be & it shames a great many of the other residents of 'commentary world' for being so self-referential.Dale Bruner is the Presbyterian Church's gift to Christendom. As with Eugene Peterson, my daily prayer is that both of these men will live to a great old age so they can finish the projects God has given them to do. (Bruner is rumored to be writing on John) I can't praise this commentary highly enough. Get it! Read it! Teach it! It will make you a better person, a better teacher/preacher, a better Christian.

Let me begin by expressing my high appreciation for Bruner, which began with his Theology of the Holy Spirit. His willingness to admit the plain meaning and role of baptism in conversion is highly commendable. And, Bruner's ability to express such meanings is impressive also.Bruner sees the whole Gospel expressing a quite systematic system of theological doctrine. He admits the danger of this approach, that one might impose such understanding as a "grid" over Matthew and the resulting "fit" might be more of an artificial arrangement than an actual representation of the Gospel's meaning. Bruner falls into the net that he is able to see. The theology he "discovers" in Matthew turns out to be stock Reformation-Protestantism (except Bruner bucks the tide on baptism). I think Matthew would have been quite surprised to be told that this theology lurks just under the surface of his story of Jesus.This theology no longer holds the shine it did before the "new persepective on Paul" emerged. We now know that Judaism was not a religion driven by "legalism" and "works salvation". And so, the "grace" that defines the antidote, that is set forth by Bruner, is not likely to be found in 1st century Christian writings. Still, Bruner "finds" it everywhere. It is terribly anachronistic to find in the NT precisely the concerns faced by Martin Luther in medieval Catholicism. It has been noted that commentators often find a theology and a Messiah bearing uncanny resemblance to themselves. Bruner does the same.Let me be fair. Bruner's error do not lead him into direct contradiction with the theology of Matthew. He lands on positions that are rather "beside" those of Matthew rather than on those "contrary" to it. One may read Bruner, in other words, without being led terrible astray. And, Bruner does hit much of Matthew's teaching meaningfully. His exposition of the genealogy pops with value, as does his treatment of the baptism of Jesus by John.Having lauded Bruner on baptism, I must express disappointment of his support of infant baptism. Bruner's location in fellowship with some of the most liberal denominations (Presby USA and United Church of Christ) has influenced his thinking. Bruner admits his split-thinking here. It is shocking that he actually thinks that some committee of human beings needs to decide the doctrine, since Bruner thinks that Scriptures are too ambiguous to be helpful!Another troubling tendency in many major expositors of Scripture is seeing application of ethical and moral directives (that should be placed in interpresonal relationships) driven toward the foreign policy decisions of international politics (Dunn and N. T. Wright do the same). "Turn the other cheek" is not a helpful response of one nation to military aggression by evil dictatorial regimes. This tendency, at times, seems to evidence a broader political agenda, and makes the gospel of Christ Jesus the servant of such agendas. The same applies to issues of domestic political policy: should the responsibility of the rich toward the poor be made by their own determination in response to God's love and in recognition of His authority? This carries implications for interpersonal relationships (love, compassion, etc.). Or, should the rich be fleeced by a political process driven by the votes of "Christians" who want the poor fed by bread thrown from the back of an impersonal government truck. Is the goal only to get the poor fed, or is it more the concern of God to engender true brotherhood across lines of economics, nationality, and politics?These concerns and complaints aside, Bruner provides much of value. That is the reason for the four stars. This is a very helpful commentary.

Product as described. Will definitely buy from again!

I purchased this commentary in frustration, after having read so many commentaries on Matthew and been thoroughly disappointed. The user's reviews were what attracted me to Bruner's commentary for which I am grateful to both them and Amazon. Bruner provides an excellent balance between looking at the issues raised by the text and stimulating fruitful reflection on the passage concerned. His own devotion to Jesus Christ is clearly evident and his love for the gospel of Matthew shines out. I suspect no one can really understand a book of the Bible unless they truly love it, and that may be one key to the quality of this commentary - that and dwelling on the text over a good many years while also seeking to live it out in one's own life. It certainly leads to a great wealth of of insight in the case of these volumes.I have been using this commentary for over 2 years both for preaching and my own edification and it still remains my favourite New Testament commentary. I can truly say it has enhanced my ministry and grown my own love for Matthew's gospel.I look forward with great anticipation to Bruner's commentary on the gospel of John.

This is a magnificent commentary, nothing short of brilliant and marvelous - and I have read a few commentaries over the past four decades. I"ve even written a devotional commentary on Matthew, Christ the King, so I am somewhat familiar with this Gospel.It's hard to describe briefly why this book is so good. Some reasons are: it is exegetically very sound and solid; it is very well outlined and clearly, even powerfully, written; it is in constant dialogue with scholarship of the highest order, both old and new; it keeps an eye on both theology and life at all times.