Not long ago, a seminary student explained why he prefers to buy individual volumes of a multi-volume commentary rather than the entire set. He said that when he is studying or teaching through a book of the Bible, he would prefer to buy the best commentaries he can find on that particular book. Then when he moves on to another book, he’ll buy commentary volumes on that book. For those who prefer to purchase commentaries that way, we have a number of large commentary sets which can be purchased in individual volumes or small groups of volumes. These include Pillar, NIGTC, NAC, NICNT, and more.

While buying individual volumes initially costs less than buying an entire set, purchasing a commentary piece by piece will ultimately cost you more. By taking advantage of sale prices and our payment plan, you can get the most bang for your buck while also spreading the purchase out into manageable payments.

In addition to the financial advantages of buying complete sets rather than individual volumes, complete commentaries offer the additional advantages of greater scope and simplicity. If you display your commentary in a pane alongside your text, a complete set will always give you information about whatever passage you happen to be viewing. You also have the simplicity of dealing with a single module. You simply display NICNT, for example, and it stays in sync with whatever passage you navigate to.

NICNT in parallel with Matthew NICNT in parallel with Romans

If, on the other hand, you purchased individual volumes of NICNT, when you navigate to a different passage, you’ll have to switch your commentary pane to a different NICNT module. That is, of course, if you even own the relevant volume.

Beyond the advantages in price, scope, and simplicity, complete commentary sets also have the advantage of containing hidden gems you might not otherwise discover. I’ll give you an example of that in tomorrow’s post.