The Gospel of John: Believe and Live (Volume 4) (21st Century Biblical Commentary Series) by Elmer L. Towns

The Gospel of John: Believe and Live (Volume 4) (21st Century Biblical Commentary Series) Reviews

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  Jeff

  This was part of a small group of books I used while preaching through the gospel of John this past 18 months or so. I found it sort of by happenstance & I’m glad I did. I got it for a bargain at a thrift store.
  
  The book by Towns was a surprise to me. It had more depth than I had anticipated. There is some explanation of some of the Greek without being overly technical. He has a way of charting things that is a help in some places. He is concise so there were some things I would have enjoyed hearing more about. He is conservative in his theology. A lay person could definitely pick this up and be very comfortable with this and would gain much insight.
  
  It was not warm the way some devotional commentaries are. This is not a major knock, but there isn’t tons of application there if that is what you need. This is more a revealing of what is there and that’s what I needed.
  
  I would definitely recommend.
• 
  Robert Justice

  An excellent commentary on the Gospel of John in the New Testament! The main textbook for my Bible 323 class, I found this very fun to read. Towns goes through each chapter one at a time (each chapter in the commentary corresponds to the next chapter in the Gospel).
  He briefly touches on each of the miraculous signs posited by John to prove the deity of Jesus of Nazareth. I would recommend this to anyone who needs something to help introduce them to John without having to bog their way through an 800-page academic monster.
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  Jay Vellacott

  Dr. Towns frequently overemphasizes the Greek language, committing many of the Exegetical Fallacies in D.A. Carson's book. For example, he spends nearly two pages speaking on the significance in Jesus' wording in John 21 to Peter about shepherding his sheep. There is likely no theological significance in the minute difference in wording. Phileo probably does not have as nuanced a meaning as many seem to think, and most Koine Greek scholars will tell you the same.
  
  Towns overinterprets many things and reads too much into them. He also creates a lot of arbitrary distinctions, list, and categories (He says that when Jesus was raised Thomas was moved volitionally, Mary emotionally, and John intellectually... who's to say that all 3 of them weren't moved in all 3 ways?)
  
  As a person who is conservative theologically, he is guilty of many silly things that some conservative theologians do when trying to fight against theological liberalism, like: overstating their case, or overemphasizing the importance of intellectual arguments.
  
  For example: it was IMPOSSIBLE for the women at the tomb to have gone to the wrong tomb (per the theories of liberal theologians) because they had seen it the day when Jesus was laid in it! Well maybe they got lost. Maybe there were many tombs that looked quite similar in the same general area. I agree that it seems unlikely that they would have gone to the wrong tomb, but not IMPOSSIBLE. It would be a much stronger argument to say that if they went to the wrong tomb the Pharisees had a vested interest in fact checking their resurrection claims and could have easily gone to the right tomb and proved them wrong. I think Case for Christ makes an argument similar to this.
  
  Many conservative theologians seem to think that if the Gospels are not completely chronological then they are not inerrant. No, they're actually only errant if they PRESENT THEMSELVES as being completely chronological. Although there are certain events that the authors present as being tied to one another chronologically, total chronology is not always required. This does not undermine inerrancy. Towns insists that the healing of the of centurion and nobleman's son have to be different events because of chronology, and then he marks out all the differences. I believe that the differences between these events are small enough that they could still be reconciled as the same event. There are other examples of him doing similar things throughout the book.
  
  All of these issues were sort of distracting as I read through. Just be aware of the shortcomings of this commentary before you buy wholesale into what Towns says. Being conservative doesn't always make him right, or he might be right but not for the reasons he provides.
  
  Having said that has good and interesting things to say and makes things accessible to the average believer, which is something that I greatly respect. I am not always sure of the use of highly scholarly works that only 15 whole people will understand and find significant.
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  Rueben Rosalez

  I enjoyed Dr Towns' comments yet was able to identify pieces of his dispensationalists theology interspersed throughout.