I am doing a Bible study at church and my online channel that goes along with the NLT Chronological Bible plan. Each week, I teach on the major themes, context, and more complicated passages from that week’s readings. I am having to process an extremely large amount of information in a short time. I’ve been teaching through the Bible academically for several years, but I still have to refresh my memory and make sure that I cover issues specific to my mission.
My current workflow is this:
I use the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible Notes to quickly refresh my memory on contextual issues.
I use Hill and Walton’s A Survey of the Old Testament and Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books for book specific introductory material and overviews of technical issues.
I then use the NIVAC to read through, supplemented with other commentaries as cited or needed for deeper clarification.
I use the IVP Black Dictionaries, Anchor Bible, and Dictionary of Deities and Demons for specific topics or subjects.
My question is this: If you were teaching through the whole Bible, focusing on background and cultural information, and covering a lot of material once each week, what would be your go-to resources.
The Lexham Research Commentaries are pretty ideal, but they aren’t available for most of the Old Testament. I like how they summarize major views and point me directly to the information in the source material.
I have a large library heavily focused on academic works, which is really part of the problem. I have information overload, and I need to whittle it down to a handful of resources that I can consult that will get me to the information I need quickly and efficiently.
