Philippians

The beauty of this work lies in it's simplicity. It is a brief, but insightful commentary. If one can find it, they should certainly grab it. Sane and sound exegetical conclusions. You never get the sense from Bruce that his aim is novelty, or speculative theorizing. In this same vein, you never get the sense that he's wasting your time, which frankly I often get the sense of far too often while reading other commentaries. I also appreciate how Bruce takes words and phrases to show how Paul uses them throughout his other letters. Honestly, I could imagine preaching through the letter with only this small help.

This short commentary by Bruce offers an insightful study of Philippians from an evangelical legend. [Full Review]

This commentary provided many useful insights into the epistle to the Philippians. Two areas stand out to me regarding this commentary: content, and format. Regarding content, its quality was readily apparent as would be expected from F.F. Bruce. Because of this quality, I was left wanting more quantity in many sections of the book. The treatment of 2:5-11 and 3:2-11 I found to be the only areas that felt mostly complete in their discussion and treatment of the text, although still brief. I think this to be a fault of the commentary rather than the author, where brevity was perhaps overly prized against completeness. In an effort to minimize technical material and be more accessible to us average readers, which I think is a worthy cause, I think this minimalist effort actually harmed the accessibility and value of the commentary rather than enhanced it. Regarding format, on any given section the commentary was split into the main comments and additional notes on each verse. The main section was less technical in nature, and the additional notes (something like footnotes, but not really) were more complex, addressing problems of language, exegesis, and hermeneutics. As with the main body, I felt much of what was said here was helpful and of good quality, but significantly lacking in quantity, affecting the overall usefulness and value of the commentary on the whole. Had the author been given more space to develop some of his helpful insights, I think the reader would have been enlightened rather than inhibited by this added length. As it is, it seems the brevity of the commentary hindered my access to this author and his knowledge of scripture. On the whole, I found this commentary helpful overall. The author's insights were penetrating throughout. However, due to its overly trimmed length the quality of the commentary was hurt, both its main discussion of the text as well as the more technical discussion appended to the end. Consequently, I would look elsewhere if considering a commentary to purchase, although I did find this commentary profitable.