For the Love of God

As you may have noticed, I have listed listed this book on the list of books that I'm reading/digesting since I put the list up. The reason I am still reading it is that this is the devotional guide/commentary that I use to study the Bible.

Actually, I have been using this, as well as the first volume for about four years. The reason I have used it so much is because it, more than anything I have found, puts an incredible emphasis on the importance of saturating ourselves in the Scriptures. Carson writes in the following in his preface:

This book is for Christians who want to read the Bible, who want to read all the Bible...Here you will find a plan that will help you read through the New Testament and Psalms twice, and the rest of the Bible once, in the course of a year--or, on a modification of the plan, in the course of two years. Comment is offered for each day, but this book fails utterly in its goal if you read the comment and not the assigned biblical passages. (ix-x)

This is one of the best attitudes about one's commentary that I have yet read. Still, he's being modest; his comments are very good, and rooted in an extraordinarily high view of God. (I quoted him in an earlier post.) This is also in his preface:

Devotional guides tend to offer short, personal readings from the Bible, sometimes only a verse or two, followed by several paragraphs of edifying exposition. Doubtless they provide personal help for believers with private needs and fears and hopes. But they do not provide the framework of what the Bible says--the "plotline" or "story line"--the big picture that makes sense of all the little bits of the Bible. Wrongly used, such devotional guides may ultimately engender the profoundly wrong-headed view that God exists to sort out my problems; they may foster profoundly mistaken interpretations of some Scriptures, simply because the handful of passages they treat are no longer placed within the framework of the big picture, which is gradually fading from view [in western Christianity]. Only systematic and repeated reading of the whole Bible can meet these challenges. (x, original emphasis)

So, if you are looking for a good Bible reading plan where you will actually read Amos, Nahum, and all of Leviticus, I highly recommend this book, as well as its first volume. Anyone know of any other good devotional guides/commentaries?