A major new Bible study resource sponsored by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and Andrews University is scheduled for release at the 2015 General Conference session in San Antonio, Texas, according to Andrews University President Niels-Erik Andreasen.
 
The Andrews Bible Commentary, the church’s first concise, one-volume commentary, is intended as a coordinated resource with the Andrews Study Bible, released by Andrews University Press in June 2010.

Andreasen made the announcement about the new commentary on Monday, April 15, to delegates from around the world at the annual Spring Meeting of the General Conference Executive committee, held this year in Battle Creek, Mich., in observance of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the General Conference.

The commentary project is coordinated by Andrews University Press, the world church’s only regularly established academic publishing house, with funding from Andrews and the General Conference, and oversight by a Project Committee of General Conference and Andrews personnel.

Andreasen said that, like the Andrews Study Bible, the Andrews Bible Commentary is intended specifically for the general reader, as well as pastors and church elders providing basic Bible teaching in the congregation.

In making his announcement, Andreasen referred the delegates to a purpose statement for the commentary that had been approved by the Project Committee. It states that the Andrews Bible Commentary “is a concise, one-volume exposition of Scripture written by faithful scholars of the church as a companion to the Andrews Study Bible for lay readers, pastors, students, and teachers living in expectation of the Advent Hope.”

“This commentary is aimed to help the person in the pew. It is written in plain language,” Andreasen said. He told the delegates that the writers had been instructed to write at the same reading level that they would write an article for the Adventist Review, the general church paper of the Adventist Church. “In some parts of the world, these two volumes—the Andrews Study Bible and the Andrews Bible Commentary—will comprise the entire theological library they will have, so we are taking this assignment very seriously,” he said.

Andreasen said that 60 writers, all Bible scholars from church institutions and organizations around the world, have been contracted to work on the commentary under the direction of a small editorial team. The general editor is Angel Rodriguez, former director of the Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference. The associate editors are Greg King (Old Testament), dean of the School of Religion, Southern Adventist University; Gerald Klingbeil (Old Testament), associate editor, Adventist Review/Adventist World; and John McVay (New Testament), president of Walla Walla University.

Andreasen said that some of the writers for the one-volume commentary have already completed their assignments. He assured GC President Ted Wilson that a small, printed sample of selected portions of the commentary will be available for the next full meeting of the GC executive committee at Annual Council in October, when Andreasen will give another progress report.

“We’ll hold you to that,” Wilson said.
  
Andreasen thanked Wilson for the support of the General Conference in the production of both the Study Bible and the forthcoming Commentary. He said that these publications represent one of the many ways that Andrews fulfills its responsibility to serve the world church.
 
Staff at Andrews University Press have noted that when it is published and released in 2015, the Andrews Bible Commentary will have about 1,800 pages of commentary and helpful articles, about three times the original content of the Andrews Study Bible.