Genesis - Salvation Begins (Reading The Bible Today Series)

Reid's writes a fantastic commentary that really helps to capture the big picture of what God is doing through out Genesis. He focuses on the first 11 chapters in great detail before broadly yet in sufficient detail looking over the rest of Genesis. Particularly helpful is how Christocentric this commentary is, it never fails to show how Genesis points us to Jesus. \\r\\n\\r\\nThis is a great tool for devotions and preparing for bible studies.

Reid takes the opening chapters of Genesis in greater detail, with extra chapters devoted to issues such as creation and gender. The remaining majority of the book is a broad-brush guide, taking large swathes of the biblical narrative, pointing out to the reader the main flow of the text.

Andrew Reid's commentary is not a close reading commentary, rather looking at the scope of Genesis within Biblical history. That is, Reid's strength is Biblical theology so the sort of questions you can bring to this popular-level commentary are to do with what a section means in its Genesis context, its Old Testament context and in the light of Scripture as a whole, rather than particular words and phrases. Reid makes meaningful NT connections throughout so it's an excellent place to start as everything from a devotional commentary to a resource for a preacher. Because it is targeted at a popular level, Reid doesn't footnote but it is clear that he has read widely (whether he notes his sources or not). Another excellent section is his sane treatment of Genesis 1-2 that doesn't push any one point of view as the only right reading, apart from saying that the Bible is unambiguous in holding that God created the universe, and he did so out of nothing. He notes that from there on, Christians are divided on various matters regarding God's means of creation and he weighs all sides. This may seem controversial, but read his first chapter and you will see and enjoy the sanity and even-handedness of his approach.