Toward Blessed Dispassion: Beginner Bible Study Tools for Orthodox Christians

To Find the Peace That Passeth All Understanding

Introduction

Procure books that will be medicines for the soul… Take them wholly to thee, keep them in thy mind. For this is the cause of all evils: the ignorance of Scripture.

- St John Chrysostom

I'm new to serious Bible study, and I’m rapidly finding it to be as indispensable a part of my path to salvation as Church attendance and daily prayer. It’s not without reason that many of the Church Fathers attested to the therapeutic benefits of studying Scripture, whose books are “medicines of the soul,” as St John Chrysostom writes. Sts Matthew and Mark quote Isaiah when writing about John the Baptist’s mission to prepare the people for the imminent ministry of God in the flesh: 

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight. (Matthew 3:3)

The rest of the original verse by Isaiah gets even more descriptive:

Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 40:4-5)

The effect of studying Scripture is similar: in reading the words wherein the “glory of the Lord” is “revealed,” the words by which “the mouth of the Lord has spoken,” the psychological valleys and peaks of a man or a woman living in the culture of the 21st century are “exalted” and “brought low”: in other words, they’re leveled, and we see that the Word of God, and the Word about God, may lead us toward blessed dispassion and “the peace that passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).

This is how these books can be the “medicines of the soul.”

Here follows a brief overview of the resources I’ve been using in pursuit of that blessed peace, with links to purchase them, in case this can help anyone else. I’ve tried to note where these tools can be found for free online; at the end of this article you’ll find a link to more free online resources. (I personally much prefer physical books. I make my living staring at a screen 8 hours a day, so I prefer my “alone time” with the Word of God to be as far away from it as possible!) And please feel free to comment with your own Bible study tools and resources!

The Orthodox Study Bible

The Orthodox Study Bible, or OSB, is the standard first resource for any Orthodox Christian whose primary language is English. It has its shortcomings which become more evident the more you dive into scripture and patristics, but you have to start somewhere. Among its shortcomings are the fact that the English translation of the Septuagint used is not actually a proper translation, but rather a version of the New King James Version of the Old Testament, corrected according to the Septuagint. But I still recommend this to all English-speaking Orthodox as the place to make a good beginning in Bible study oriented toward growing the mind of Christ in oneself (an Orthodox “phronema”).

If you buy this, make sure it’s the entire Bible, OT and NT, not the version that’s merely the NT with (the non-Septuagint!) Psalms. The OSB is pictured here with adhesive Bible tabs which you can also find at most major booksellers and at christianbook.com. Make sure to get ones for Catholic Bibles, as that will give you additional tabs for books not found in Protestant Bibles (there will still be some tabs missing for books of the Orthodox Bible that are not included in the Catholic canon). The OSB can be found at most major booksellers, or through the publisher’s website: store.ancientfaith.com.

The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox

The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox, compiled and edited by Johanna Manley, is one of my favorite ways to study Scripture. This is (almost) the entire Orthodox lectionary (daily Scripture readings) used in our services, with accompanying patristic commentary, mostly but not limited to the homilies of St John Chrysostom. 

This is the first thing I reach for when I wake up, because it helps to “kindle the fire of divine zeal” which thaws my frozen heart to prepare it for my morning prayers (in general I find reading and studying Scripture prior to praying helps me focus on my prayers). The least expensive source for this is christianbook.com.

My one major caveat about this resource: back when this was originally published, in 1984, there were scant patristic commentaries on the OT available in English to draw from. Therefore the editor decided to use, for reasons I cannot fathom, commentaries from the Scofield Bible. I implore readers to ignore these commentaries as they often frankly contradict Orthodox tradition. 

The Explanation of the Holy Gospels by Blessed Theophylact

Each volume of the Explanation of the Holy Gospels by Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria is easily worth its weight in gold. Bl. Theophylact distills the timeless essence of much of St John Chrysostom's lengthy homilies in his commentaries. They are concise and profound, indeed verging on poetry in places, and often necessitating deep, slow, contemplative reading for their comprehension.

• Matthew
• Mark
• Luke
• John

In addition to the Gospels, the volumes of Bl. Theophlact’s commentaries that have been translated into English as of this writing are the following:

• Minor Prophets: Hosea, Habakkuk, Jonah, Nahum, Micah
• Acts
• Romans
• 1 Corinthians
• Galatians (Link 1) (Link 2)
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Colossians
• 1 and 2 Thessalonians
• 1,2,3 John
• 1 Peter
• James
• Jude and 2 Peter
• Hebrews

Commentary on the Gospels by Archbishop Averky

Archbishop Averky's Commentaries are another standard resource. In his commentaries on the Gospels, rather than going verse-by-verse for each book like Bl. Theophylact does, he has assembled a chronological harmony of the Four Gospels and he compiles each series of passages depicting the same events, and then comments on each episode, accounting for each Gospel writer's perspective.

I've found that following his commentary while reading Bl. Theophyact's commentaries for each passage has been most helpful - there is actually little overlap between the two commentaries. In addition to this volume on the Gospels (Vol 1), Archbishop Averky's commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles (Vol 2), and the Epistles & the Apocaypse of John (Vol 3), are available in English (the set of all three volumes may be purchased here). These volumes are well-crafted, durable, and well-designed, like beautiful Bible textbooks. These can be purchased from the publisher at holytrinitypublications.com.

English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament

The more I've dived into scripture the more blind I've felt not knowing how to read it in its original language, because a great deal of nuance is lost in translation. So, not being able to read Koine Greek, this English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament is a resource that is the next best thing for studying the NT.

It’s a “reverse” interlinear because it follows the English word order, in this case, that of the English Standard Version (ESV) translation, rather than the original Greek word order. Nevertheless it helpfully identifies the original Greek word order by numbering each Greek word, it identifies the morphology of each word, it provides an English phonetic transliteration of each Greek word, and additionally it provides each Greek word’s Strong number, so I can use this beautiful tool with a concordance (see No. 8).

You can buy this volume from the publisher at crossway.org. Some Bible study websites, such as BibleHub.com and BlueLetterBible.com, also have interlinear tools available for free.

Literal Standard Version of the Bible (LSV)

Being unable to read the original language, I've also found it helpful to use more than one translation for study. The OSB uses the New King James Version; the Reverse Interlinear New Testament mentioned above pairs the original Koine Greek with the ESV; the translations of Bl Theophylact's commentaries use the King James Version, and this Literal Standard Version is an update of the classic Young's Literal Version, and as Fr Stephen De Young would put it, "it does what it says on the tin." (I added the tabs to this Bible as well.)

Yes, it's woodenly literal, which in this case is a feature, not a bug. You can buy the "Value" edition shown here for $12 (and the Kindle version is currently available for 99 cents), though the print is tiny. Additionally there are NO paragraph or section breaks, only breaks between chapters. I have a certain fondness for this uncommon presentation, as this as this most closely approximates how the scriptures were originally written and copied, but it takes some getting used to. You can buy the hardcover edition from Amazon (the publisher's website just links to Amazon), and you can also read it in its entirety online at read.lsvbible.com. Incidentally, the translators of this version have also helpfully translated the Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books (such as the Book of Enoch and OT Pseudepigrapha) and compiled these 100 books into a single volume, as well as compiled them together with the canonical books, also available at Amazon.

Strong’s Concordance and Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek

Strong's Concordance is a classic Bible study tool. It's paired with the KJV and shows every occurrence of an English word from that translation, while also providing a Hebrew and Greek dictionary which assigns each word of the original language to a number, thus facilitating deep dives and word studies. This huge volume was found for $8 at a local used bookstore, which is about the going rate for used copies being sold online. Otherwise there are numerous websites that allow its use for free, but if like me you prefer something tangible to hold in your hands, you can also get it new for about $14 (50% off!) at christianbook.com.

The Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps & Timelines; and the Biblica Pocket Bible Atlas

The Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps & Timelines is immensely helpful for all the reasons you'd expect. It's rare that I don't consult this tool when reading Acts, to be able to see exactly where the journeys of the Apostles took them.

As an example: too often I've read Acts failing to fully recognize that the Apostles evangelized in two distinct cities by the name of Antioch, not just one, which is important to bear in mind when considering " it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:26).

Another example: the genealogies of Christ given in Matthew and in Luke diverge significantly, not just in their scope (Luke's traces Christ's lineage back to Adam, whereas Matthew stops at Abraham, which has to do with each Evangelist's respective original audience), but even where they overlap in their timelines, different names are given for what ostensibly should be the same generation. We find the solution to this riddle in this book's foldout on Christ's Genealogy, which 1) reminds us that a person may be descended from a single progenitor or series of progenitors (such as David and the Biblical patriarchs), through different contemporaneous lineages, and 2) provides a practical example of the fact that ancient Hebrew genealogies were never intended to be exhaustive lists of all the generations between a person and their ancestors.

Last example: it's helpful to be able to visualize what we can reasonably piece together of the appearance of the Tabernacle, and of the 2 (and a half) Temples in Jerusalem (Solomon's First Temple, the post-exile reconstructed Second Temple, and Herod's later refurbishing of the Second Temple in Christ's time).

In short: anyone who works with data can attest that visualizing that data can make all the difference in the world.

Additionally, the Biblica Pocket Bible Atlas goes book by book and provides detailed cultural and historical context for each map it presents. The Rose Book can be found for $25 at christianbook.com. You can find the Biblica Pocket Atlas for $12 (50% off) at barnesandnoble.com.

Online Orthodox Study Resources

• Fr John Whiteford has provided a much more in-depth and invaluable aid to studying the Scriptures in this article.

• He has also written a helpful guide to approaching Protestant Biblical scholarship (which is the bulk of Biblical scholarship in English).

• He further lays out the best free, online tools for Bible study here. Please note that this article is from 2012 and thus some of this information may be out of date.

• Fr Whiteford presented an hour-long lecture on the topic at a Lenten retreat in 2019, which is well worth your time.

• Lastly, here is a collection of additional guidance and resources from Fr Whiteford.