The commentaries and reference works this app shows beside the Bible: who made them, when and why, and how to read them well.
What a Commentary Is and How to Read OneA commentary is a guide who sits beside the reader and explains the text; it is not Scripture. This guide shows how to read the passage first, weigh voices from different centuries and traditions, test every comment by the text, and use the app's study helps together.Matthew Henry's Concise CommentaryA later abridgement of the great Bible commentary by Matthew Henry (1662–1714), an English Nonconformist Presbyterian minister. It walks through the whole Bible passage by passage and turns each one toward faith and life, which makes it a good companion for devotional reading.The Catena AureaA chain of passages from the Church Fathers on the four Gospels, gathered verse by verse by Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) in the 1260s. It lets you hear how the early and medieval church read the Gospels, and bears rich witness to the faith in Christ that East and West share.Wesley's Explanatory NotesThe notes on the whole Bible by John Wesley (1703–1791), the Church of England priest who led the Methodist revival, written for ordinary believers and preachers. They are short and plain, open the key words of a verse and turn them toward grace and holy living, which makes them a good companion for slow, verse-by-verse reading.The Treasury of Scripture KnowledgeA nineteenth-century collection of cross-references that sets beside each verse of the Bible, word by word, other passages to read with it. It is good for following a word or theme through Scripture and for letting clearer passages shed light on harder ones.Nave's Topical BibleA topical index of the whole Bible compiled by Orville J. Nave (1841–1917), a United States Army chaplain, and first published in 1896. It gathers the verses on a subject from every part of Scripture and arranges them under headings, which makes it a good starting point for studying, teaching or preaching what the Bible says on a theme.STEPBible's Original-Language DataThe tagged Greek and Hebrew text and the lexicons behind the Original tab, made freely available by Tyndale House, Cambridge. They show which word stands behind a translation, where else the Bible uses it, and why translations differ.