1 2 Corinthians (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)

Craig Keener is a prolific evangelical writer, and his commentaries are sometimes considered classics. But one of his weaknesses is that he sometimes focus too much on the cultural and social setting of the text and he forgets to expound what the text is actually saying.

In a commentary that is this short, I was hoping for an exposition that quickly gets to the heart of what the text is saying, especially because Keener is preparing a much larger work on these epistles, and so I figured he could whittle that down into a compelling, digestible format.

But such is not the case. Again, Craig falls into the habit of giving us circumstantial information and not enough exposition of the actual text. It is telling when the most brilliant exposition in the book (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) comes in the form of a "closer look" section rather than in the body of the book where it belongs.

Actually, the 2 Corinthians portion of this book has more compelling exposition than 1 Corinthians, in my opinion. I like this New Cambridge commentary series because some of the volumes do a great job of exposing the text's meaning without a lot of verbiage (Witherington on Revelation and Arnold on Genesis, for example).

But this one will leave you hungering for more.