Customer Reviews

Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament: Colossians and Philemon

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This book is a must have for pastors and students who are serious about studying the biblical text in its original language. Each section advances with an analysis of the paragraph structure, followed by a succinct, yet, very helpful analysis of each phrase of the Greek NT and culminating with a translation, an expanded paraphrase, suggested books and articles for further study and homiletical suggestions for preaching the text based upon sound exegesis. This volume is well worth while, I can hardly wait for the next installment in this series.

For a number of years I have taught second year Greek for seminary students in Asian and Africa using Colossians as the set texts. Harris has in effect taken all of the work out of this effort for both the teacher and the student! This is good in that it frees up the student to focus on decision making about critical exegetical issues, to work on background issues and to grapple with application. One hopes that Harris or others will quickly finish other volumes in this series.

This is not a "commentary" in the traditional sense, but rather, as the title says, it is an "exegetical guide" to the translation and interpretation of Colossians & Philemon. Those who know Greek will find this extremely helpful in the evaluation of various exegetical options. For preachers or teachers, the homeletical support is excellent. This is a unique and extremely helpful tool for the serious bible student; check it out - you've not seen anything like it. I too am eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series!

For anyone doing exegetical work in Colossians and/or Philemon, this book is so helpful it's almost funny. He gives helpful answers to almost every question that the thoughtful exegete asks of the text, provided it is the meaning of the text that you are trying to unearth.

As a senior pastor who has been preaching for twenty years on a weekly basis this series is a welcome contribution for the preacher or teacher of God's Word. As I have preached through Colossians verse by verse this past year I have continually been helped and my people have been helped through the exegetical insights of Murray in this excellent commentary. For those who have had a year of more of Greek it will help bring to memory much that has been forgotten.

The Guide assumes the following:

1) You have completed an introductory New Testament Greek Course
2) You have learned the meanings of words occurring in the New Testament more than 25 times
3) You have been introduced to New Testament Textual Criticism
4) You own or have access to a copy of The Greek New Testament, fourth rev. ed. B. Aland, K. Aland, J. Karavidopoulos, C.M, Martini and B.M. Metzger (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, New York: United Bible Societies, 1993)

The stated purpose of this book (and the commentaries in this series) is "to close that gap between stranded student (or former student) and daunting text and to bridge that gulf between morphological analysis and exegesis."

I found this commentary to be particularly helpful in helping me understand Paul's logic, grammar, argumentation, and insights into the author's original intentions in brining out the "big picture" of Colossians - The Supremacy of Christ Sufficient for All things. Along with a good devotional like Sam Storms, "The Hope of Glory"; a good English and Greek Based Commentary like Douglas Moo's, or F. F. Bruce; and an application based commentary like David E. Garland's - you should be set to study and teach Colossians with great effectiveness.

This is an awesome commentary for pastors. If you can work with the Greek language, you will love this commentary. The structure of the book is great. He diagrams each paragraph and talks about each phrase. He gives the parsing and syntax and word study helps. He gives a great bibliography with each paragraph. He gives some sermon outlines at the end of each section. I highly recommend this commentary. I hope they publish several more in this series in the days ahead.

Moving from the study of New Testament Greek to the study of the New Testament Greek texts can be a somewhat vague, uncertain process, especially for students learning on their own outside of the classroom. The Exegetical Guide has helped me to stay on track and to learn what questions need to be asked of the text and what choices need to be made with regard to grammar and syntax. The books are also small and inexpensive enough that even after a student has reached a level of confidence and proficiency that would allow them to wean themselves off of tools like this, he or she can still utilize this series to check their work, or to reveal any bits of syntax or any relevant commentary that they have missed.

Perhaps one of the most helpful tools for dealing with the grammar and syntax in Colossians. Harris is incredibly thorough and does not skip over any detail which often can be a frustration when dealing with commentaries. Because his work is exegetically driven the preacher/teacher can have confidence that the authorial intent is being unearthed...and of course there is the added bonus that Dr Harris is a "Kiwi."

I've gathered commentaries of Colossians and Ephesians to write about an book myself from a Greek exegetical point of view. I should've known this is not a commentary but a guide for a biblical Greek learner in the first place.
But the author recommend a lot of books for the future reference and I find them to be very exhaustive bibliography. Along with this book, of course, I've obtained more precise commentaries. This could give you a quick going over before you go about reading thicker commentaries.