Theology Sketchbook
Mapping Out The Faith
Helpful Resources
Trusted Biblical Scholarship
Faithful Christians who earnestly seek to dig deeper into God's Word in the modern era truly have an embarrassment of riches. So much ink has been spilled writing countless volumes of biblical commentaries and theological resources that it can be hard to know which ones to choose.
My philosophy is that one's view of Scripture will inevitably dictate how they approach Scripture, so when looking for resources it is a must for me that the author affirms the inspired nature of Scripture. Resources written by biblical scholars who do not believe in the authoritative nature of Scripture as God's inspired revelation (there are many...) may yield some helpful insights, but if one assumes the human origin of the text, one has already ruled out the possibility of coherence with the rest of Scripture and as such the insights gleaned will often be underwhelming. For this reason I am indifferent to people like Jordan Peterson who may have some interesting ideas about the Bible, but who ultimately do not understand the real significance of God's Word.
The following is a list of current biblical scholars who I've come to trust as a general rule. I obviously do not affirm every theological position that each of the people on the list holds, but I trust their conviction about the inherent nature of God's Word. The list is by no means exhaustive, and I am sure the list will grow as I continue to grow my library, but as far as conservative evangelical New Testament scholars who hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, I usually reach for the likes of G.K. Beale, Michael J. Bird, Craig Blomberg, Darrell L. Bock, D.A. Carson, R.T. France, Craig Keener, Andreas Köstenberger, Michael Kruger, Douglas Moo, William Mounce, Thomas Schreiner, and Ben Witherington III.
Online Resources
Best Commentaries is a website which pitches itself as "Rotten Tomatoes of Biblical Studies". It is an incredibly helpful database of up to date biblical scholarship with helpful reviews and rankings. Many are even tagged based on what the author's theological framework is, which is helpful to those (like myself) not familiar with most biblical scholars.
Bible study software can be frustratingly expensive, which is a problem for many lay people and people actually living on ministry wages. Blue Letter Bible is a free website which offers a surprisingly robust platform for doing biblical study free online. One drawback of many bible softwares is that you have to buy each individual translation in order to toggle between them. Blue Letter Bible has them all readily accessible. Obviously, paying for Logos Software will get you the industry standard in bible software, but for those on a budget Blue Letter Bible is a blessing.
Whenever I can, I go out of my way to promote Christian Book Distributors for anybody looking to buy bibles, bible studies, commentaries, or really anything "Christian". I fall short of personally boycotting companies because of political disagreements for the fact that, if I were consistent in the application of this principle it would become virtually impossible to do anything in our society. That said, I used to buy my books from Amazon for the sake of convenience, but in the last year or two I have decided to give my business to Christian Book, and have actually found that they are very reasonable and timely. The thought is, if I'm getting resources anyways, I might as well give my money to a Kindom-minded organisation.
There are many good, solid apologetics ministries out there, but one I regularly trust and return to for thoughtful engagement with real-world issues is Stand To Reason. All of the members of Stand To Reason's team are phenomenal at what they do, and are a great resource of students or parents who are interested in speaking truth in love and representing God's Kingdom well in a world that is increasingly chaotic.
Learning the original biblical languages (Hebrew for the Old Testament, and Greek for the New Testament) is crucial in doing good bible study and growing in your personal walk with Christ. Thankfully, most writers of biblical commentaries have a command of the biblical languages and can elucidate nuances in the text that are lost in the English translations. But for those seeking to get a basic grasp of the original Koine Greek in which thee New Testament is written, Bill Mounce offers very accessible tracks for either learning the basics (as I have done), or to go all-in and actually learn the language.
YouTube Resources
In the digital age, YouTube videos and Podcasts can offer increasingly good resources for theological learning.