Luke

Stein is clearly an excellent commentator. I enjoyed reading it. I appreciated Stein's willingness to depart from standard academic assumptions when Luke clearly had something different in mind. Stein's textual analysis has a view towards understanding its meaning to the original readers. He approaches Luke's gospel as Luke's view of Jesus the Messiah. Stein does not attempt to harmonize Luke's view with that of the other three Gospels. This may be petty on my part, but I appreciate that the footnotes are actually at the foot of the corresponding pages rather than in a thick section at the back of the book. I read the footnotes; so when they are at the back of the book I have to do my reading with two bookmarks. Stein does make some claims about Luke that I believe panders to the commentary's expected reader. He, for example, he states without defense that the choice of Zechariah by lot (in 1:9) "was not the result of 'chance' or 'fate.' God was clearly in control of the event." Clearly? It is not clear to me. Again, he claims that Luke believed that God is sovereign over history. If it is true that Luke believed God controls history, I wish Stein defended his interpretation better. Obviously, many readers will agree; but I do not believe "sovereignty over history" is safe to assume. So Stein's commentary is good but not great.

I was in the market for a single-volume commentary on Luke and this one and Green's NICNT were both recommended. I now have both. Of the two, I'd recommend Green. The advantage for Stein is its concise nature. The NAC is designed for pastors. Less linguistic and historical detail, more focus on teaching points. I prefer the structure of Blomberg's Matthew commentary in this series (paragraph sized chunks at a time) over Stein's individual words and phrases. Stein's approach is probably better suited for a Greek based commentary. But this is a reliable resource worth having. Also more affordable than most Luke commentaries which require 2 or even 3 volumes.

Stein’s 642-page commentary is positively small next to Bock’s. It is considered an intermediate-level commentary that may be a little too advanced for the casual reader; the pastor or scholar well-versed in Greek may want to pass it up in favor of Bock and Marshall (see below). One benefit of this commentary is that it is reasonably-priced and thus good value for the money. [Full Review]

I did not find much help here in getting at Jesus' point. Like Bock's massive commentary, there is lots of information, but I still do not feel like it really helped me understand Jesus or the text better.

Stein is an expert on Luke and goes beyond the NAC expectations with his disciplined 3-part analysis of each passage. Bock (BECNT, 1994, 1996) is great, but expensive (2 vols.) and much more than you need until you decide to preach through.

[After Bock], it is difficult to place the remaining commentaries [on Luke] in any particular order. I find each of them almost equally useful, albeit in different ways. Stein, for instance, has produced a very helpful intermediate level commentary for pastors and teachers. It is another fine contribution to the NAC series of commentaries. [Full Review]

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