Yes-Men or Debating Partners?
A follow-up thought, hard upon the heels of what I wrote earlier about the kind of commentaries you need.
When you do your own study of Scripture and then turn to your commentaries, are you hoping they’ll function as yes men, reassuring you that you’re on the right track, or that they’ll function as conversationalists, even partners in an argument over the text?
Do you hope that they’ll say what you want them to say or are you willing to listen to them and let them convince you?
Does it ever happen that you read a commentary and find it compelling, only to go on and read another one and find that he demolishes the first one’s position, only to read a third and find that he brings you at least part of the way back to that first writer’s view or maybe pushes you toward a different view altogether?
If you never find yourself going back and forth, never find yourself having to work through arguments and weigh them, never find that you have to change your mind as you study, something has gone wrong somewhere, maybe in you, maybe in the kind of commentaries you’re reading.