What is a study Bible?
A study Bible is an ordinary Bible printed together with human helps: notes at the foot of the page, cross-references in the margin, outlines, maps, dictionaries. The words of Scripture and the words of an editor sit on the same page, which raises the one question that matters — what weight does each carry?
Helps Under Another Name
Writers in this collection do not treat explanatory notes as an intrusion. One of them answers the objection head-on, pointing out that the very books urging people to do their own study are themselves a kind of commentary:
Samuel RidoutWe can only say, there are two kinds of commentaries and we must not be afraid of a word because it has been abused. What is our own little book, but an effort to throw light upon the truths of the precious word of God?… These are but commentaries under another name, and we must not despise helps of this kind. Indeed, the student who gathers most by original work will be the last to despise helps of every kind.
Received With Thanks, Used With Care
The same helps a study Bible bundles together — translation notes, a concordance, a dictionary, expositions — are listed elsewhere as genuine gifts, with a warning about the quality of much that is printed:
John RitchieA revised or other translation, a complete and trustworthy concordance to the Bible, and a reliable Bible dictionary are useful and now easily acquired helps in the study of the Sacred Word. These, with expositions of truths by gifted and Divinely-taught ministers of the Word, are to be received with thanksgiving and used with wisdom, always in leading you to the Word to dig there for yourselves, never to take its place… Commentaries, as a rule, are theological and dry; many of them muddy, some quite erroneous, and generally even when sound, cold-blooded, with little in them to enrich the soul.
Text and Note Are Not Equals
A study Bible tempts the reader to skip the harder column and read the easier one. That habit gets named plainly, along with the reason the Bible itself will always outlast the notes about it:
Samuel RidoutMany true Christians read their Bibles largely in a routine way, and turn with a measure of relief to some expository book and gather practically their instruction from it. Now let us face the matter. The word of God is more important than the best word of man about that Word, and the Bible itself states things far more wisely and clearly than the wisest books of men… The best books ever written are in that way only signboards to point to where all knowledge dwells.
The danger is not the note but the note becoming the lens:
C. StanleyIt will not do to look at them through human spectacles, so to speak, or hear them explained by human authority. We must individually hear what God says to us. To say I can only believe what God says, if my minister or my church says it is so, is to put man between my soul and God, yes, to exalt man above God. Yet how often this is done.
Sidelight and Sunlight
Much of what fills a study Bible is background — history, geography, archaeology, word origins. One writer draws a sharp distinction between information about the text and light on it, without dismissing the research:
Samuel RidoutYou may know the languages accurately, be able to make fine distinctions in Greek particles and tenses, and yet be completely in the dark as to the meaning of this Holy Word. A glance at many of the learned commentaries will illustrate this. History, archaeology, science are drawn upon, and a wealth of sidelight is thrown upon the narrative; but sadly, no sunlight. You will understand that I value the sidelight, but only after I have the sunlight… Learning, I want to say plainly, is not an enemy to the truth, but a servant.
The Berean Test
There is a scriptural pattern for handling any teaching, including the teaching printed under the verses:
H. H. SnellPaul then carries the gospel to Berea; and we are told that the Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica; and why? Because they held that the scriptures (then the Old Testament) were the only balance God had given to test everything by; so "they searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so." Yes, and they were commended for testing even the ministry of an inspired apostle by the scriptures.
Commentators differ in tone — some warmly recommend concordances and reference works, others urge that only a few helps be kept close by — but none of them puts a human note on the level of the text.
Summary
- Book. The Bible states things more wisely and clearly than the wisest books of men; every help exists to send you back to it.
- Helps. Concordances, dictionaries, translations and expositions are to be received with thanksgiving and used with wisdom — the best student is the last to despise them.
- Limit. A help may never take the Word's place; to read Scripture only through human spectacles is to put man between your soul and God.
- Light. History and language give sidelight; they are a servant, not the sunlight by which the Word is understood.
- Test. The Bereans were praised for weighing even an apostle's preaching by Scripture — do the same with every note on the page.