Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary Matthew 1a - Flipbook - Page 7
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
F
or more than sixty years I have loved the Bible. It was that love for the
Scriptures, mixed with a clear call into the gospel ministry during my
tour of duty in the Marine Corps, that resulted in my going to Dallas Theological Seminary to prepare for a lifetime of ministry. During those four great
years I had the privilege of studying under outstanding men of God, who also
loved God’s Word. They not only held the inerrant Word of God in high esteem,
they taught it carefully, preached it passionately, and modeled it consistently.
A week never passes without my giving thanks to God for the grand heritage
that has been mine to claim! I am forever indebted to those fine theologians
and mentors, who cultivated in me a strong commitment to the understanding,
exposition, and application of God’s truth.
For more than fifty years I have been engaged in doing just that—and how I
love it! I confess without hesitation that I am addicted to the examination and
the proclamation of the Scriptures. Because of this, books have played a major
role in my life for as long as I have been in ministry—especially those volumes
that explain the truths and enhance my understanding of what God has written. Through these many years I have collected a large personal library, which
has proven invaluable as I have sought to remain a faithful student of the Bible.
To the end of my days, my major goal in life is to communicate the Word with
accuracy, insight, clarity, and practicality. Without informative and reliable
books to turn to, I would have “run dry” decades ago.
Among my favorite and most well-worn volumes are those that have enabled
me to get a better grasp of the biblical text. Like most expositors, I am forever
searching for literary tools that I can use to hone my gifts and sharpen my
skills. For me, that means finding resources that make the complicated simple
and easy to understand, that offer insightful comments and word pictures
that enable me to see the relevance of sacred truth in light of my twenty-first-
century world, and that drive those truths home to my heart in ways I do not
easily forget. When I come across such books, they wind up in my hands as I
devour them and then place them in my library for further reference . . . and,
believe me, I often return to them. What a relief it is to have these resources to
turn to when I lack fresh insight, or when I need just the right story or illustration, or when I get stuck in the tangled text and cannot find my way out. For the
serious expositor, a library is essential. As a mentor of mine once said, “Where
else can you have ten thousand professors at your fingertips?”
In recent years I have discovered there are not nearly enough resources like
those I just described. It was such a discovery that prompted me to consider
v