Ephesians 4:8,11,12; 1 Peter 4:10,11
When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men…And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Being fully persuaded of these things, I conclude that whatever help is offered to good Christians in searching the scriptures is real service done to the glory of God, and to the interests of His kingdom; it is this that hath drawn me into this undertaking, which I have gone about in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, lest I should be found exercising myself in things too high for me, and so laudable an undertaking should suffer damage by an unskillful management.
WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER (1808-1884): Matthew Henry was the Prince of Commentators.
ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): Matthew Henry’s Commentary should be in every household in the land.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is the poor man’s commentary, the old Christian’s companion, suitable to everybody, instructive to all.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): He is allowed by all competent judges, to have been a person of strong understanding, of various learning, of solid piety, and much experience in the ways of God. And his exposition is generally clear and intelligible, the thoughts being expressed in plain words: It is also found agreeable to the tenor of Scripture, and to the analogy of faith. It is frequently full, giving a sufficient explication of the passages which require explaining. It is in many parts deep, penetrating farther into the inspired writings than most other comments do. It does not entertain us with vain speculations, but is practical throughout: and usually spiritual too, teaching us how to worship God, not in form only, but in spirit and in truth.
C. H. SPURGEON: He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, terse and trustworthy. You will find him to be glittering with metaphors, rich in analogies, overflowing with illustrations, superabundant in reflections. He delights in apposition and alliteration; he is usually plain, quaint, and full of pith; he sees right through a text directly…He is deeply spiritual, heavenly, and profitable; finding good matter in every text, and from all, deducing most practical and judicious lessons.
MATTHEW HENRY: I desire that I may be read with a candid, and not a critical eye. I pretend not to gratify the curious; the summit of my ambition is to assist those who are truly serious, in searching the Scriptures daily. I am sure the work is designed, and hope it is calculated, to promote piety towards God and charity towards our brethren, and that there is not only something in it which may edify, but nothing which may justly offend any good Christian.
RICHARD CECIL (1748-1810): The man who labours to please his neighbour for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. How different would things be if this spirit prevailed!
MATTHEW HENRY: If any desire to know how so mean and obscure a person as I am, who in learning, judgment, felicity of expression, and in all advantages for such service, am less than the least of all my Master’s servants, came to venture upon so great a work, I can give no other account of it than this: It has long been my practice, in what little time I had to spare in my study from constant preparations for the pulpit, to spend it in drawing up expositions upon some parts of the New Testament, not so much for my own use as purely for my entertainment; because I knew not how to employ my thoughts and time more to my satisfactions. “Every man that studies hath some beloved study, which is his delight above any other;” and this is mine. It is that learning which it was my happiness from a child to be trained up in by my ever honoured father, whose memory must always be very dear and precious to me. He often reminded me, that a good textuary [one well informed in the Bible] is a good divine; and that I should read other books with this in my eye, that I might be better able to understand and apply the Scripture.
C. H. SPURGEON: Every minister ought to read Matthew Henry entirely and carefully through once at least—you will acquire a vast store of sermons if you read with your notebook close at hand; and as for thoughts, they will swarm around you like twittering swallows around an old gable towards the close of autumn. If you publicly expound the chapter you have just been reading, your people will wonder at the novelty of your remarks and the depth of your thoughts, and then you may tell them what a treasure Henry is. William Jay’s sermons bear indubitable evidence of his having studied Matthew Henry almost daily. Many of the quaint things in Jay’s sermons are either directly traceable to Matthew Henry or to his familiarity with that writer. I have thought that the style of Jay was founded upon Matthew Henry: Matthew Henry is Jay writing, Jay is Matthew Henry preaching.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): How sweetly did my hours in private glide away in reading and praying over Matthew Henry’s Commentary upon the Scriptures! Whilst I am musing on and writing about it, the fire I then felt again kindles in my soul.*
MATTHEW HENRY: If any receive spiritual benefit by my poor endeavours, it will be a comfort to me, but let God have all the glory, and that free grace of His which has employed one utterly unworthy of such an honour, and enabled one thus far to go on in it who is utterly insufficient for such a service. Having obtained help of God, I continue hitherto in it, and humbly depend upon the same good hand of my God to carry me on in that which remains—one volume more, I hope, will include what is yet to done; and I will go on with it, as God shall enable me, with all convenient speed.
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): Matthew Henry did not live to put a finishing hand to the exposition. He had made ample preparations for the completion of the work, but the providence of God, though mysterious, is always wise.**
C. H. SPURGEON: The latter part of his Commentary was completed by other hands. The writers were Evans, Brown, Mayo, Bays, Rosewell, Harriss, Atkinson, Smith, Tong, Wright, Merrell, Hill, Reynolds, and Billingsley, all ministers. They have executed their work exceedingly well, have worked in much of the matter which Henry had collected, and have done their best to follow his methods, but their combined production is far inferior to Matthew Henry himself, and any reader will soon detect the difference.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Good Matthew Henry said, as he was expiring, to his friends in the room, “You have heard and read the words of many dying men―and these are mine; I have found a life of communion with God, the happiest life in the world.”
___________________
*Editor’s Note: During his lifetime, George Whitefield read through Matthew Henry’s Commentary four times, often on his knees, as he prayed over what he was reading.
**Editor’s Note: Matthew Henry began writing his Bible Commentary in 1704, and began publishing it in 1710. By Henry’s death in 1714, he had completed Genesis to Acts. Working from Henry’s own notes, his minister friends completed Romans to Revelation.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary
Ephesians 4:8,11,12; 1 Peter 4:10,11
When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men…And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Being fully persuaded of these things, I conclude that whatever help is offered to good Christians in searching the scriptures is real service done to the glory of God, and to the interests of His kingdom; it is this that hath drawn me into this undertaking, which I have gone about in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, lest I should be found exercising myself in things too high for me, and so laudable an undertaking should suffer damage by an unskillful management.
WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER (1808-1884): Matthew Henry was the Prince of Commentators.
ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): Matthew Henry’s Commentary should be in every household in the land.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is the poor man’s commentary, the old Christian’s companion, suitable to everybody, instructive to all.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): He is allowed by all competent judges, to have been a person of strong understanding, of various learning, of solid piety, and much experience in the ways of God. And his exposition is generally clear and intelligible, the thoughts being expressed in plain words: It is also found agreeable to the tenor of Scripture, and to the analogy of faith. It is frequently full, giving a sufficient explication of the passages which require explaining. It is in many parts deep, penetrating farther into the inspired writings than most other comments do. It does not entertain us with vain speculations, but is practical throughout: and usually spiritual too, teaching us how to worship God, not in form only, but in spirit and in truth.
C. H. SPURGEON: He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, terse and trustworthy. You will find him to be glittering with metaphors, rich in analogies, overflowing with illustrations, superabundant in reflections. He delights in apposition and alliteration; he is usually plain, quaint, and full of pith; he sees right through a text directly…He is deeply spiritual, heavenly, and profitable; finding good matter in every text, and from all, deducing most practical and judicious lessons.
MATTHEW HENRY: I desire that I may be read with a candid, and not a critical eye. I pretend not to gratify the curious; the summit of my ambition is to assist those who are truly serious, in searching the Scriptures daily. I am sure the work is designed, and hope it is calculated, to promote piety towards God and charity towards our brethren, and that there is not only something in it which may edify, but nothing which may justly offend any good Christian.
RICHARD CECIL (1748-1810): The man who labours to please his neighbour for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. How different would things be if this spirit prevailed!
MATTHEW HENRY: If any desire to know how so mean and obscure a person as I am, who in learning, judgment, felicity of expression, and in all advantages for such service, am less than the least of all my Master’s servants, came to venture upon so great a work, I can give no other account of it than this: It has long been my practice, in what little time I had to spare in my study from constant preparations for the pulpit, to spend it in drawing up expositions upon some parts of the New Testament, not so much for my own use as purely for my entertainment; because I knew not how to employ my thoughts and time more to my satisfactions. “Every man that studies hath some beloved study, which is his delight above any other;” and this is mine. It is that learning which it was my happiness from a child to be trained up in by my ever honoured father, whose memory must always be very dear and precious to me. He often reminded me, that a good textuary [one well informed in the Bible] is a good divine; and that I should read other books with this in my eye, that I might be better able to understand and apply the Scripture.
C. H. SPURGEON: Every minister ought to read Matthew Henry entirely and carefully through once at least—you will acquire a vast store of sermons if you read with your notebook close at hand; and as for thoughts, they will swarm around you like twittering swallows around an old gable towards the close of autumn. If you publicly expound the chapter you have just been reading, your people will wonder at the novelty of your remarks and the depth of your thoughts, and then you may tell them what a treasure Henry is. William Jay’s sermons bear indubitable evidence of his having studied Matthew Henry almost daily. Many of the quaint things in Jay’s sermons are either directly traceable to Matthew Henry or to his familiarity with that writer. I have thought that the style of Jay was founded upon Matthew Henry: Matthew Henry is Jay writing, Jay is Matthew Henry preaching.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): How sweetly did my hours in private glide away in reading and praying over Matthew Henry’s Commentary upon the Scriptures! Whilst I am musing on and writing about it, the fire I then felt again kindles in my soul.*
MATTHEW HENRY: If any receive spiritual benefit by my poor endeavours, it will be a comfort to me, but let God have all the glory, and that free grace of His which has employed one utterly unworthy of such an honour, and enabled one thus far to go on in it who is utterly insufficient for such a service. Having obtained help of God, I continue hitherto in it, and humbly depend upon the same good hand of my God to carry me on in that which remains—one volume more, I hope, will include what is yet to done; and I will go on with it, as God shall enable me, with all convenient speed.
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): Matthew Henry did not live to put a finishing hand to the exposition. He had made ample preparations for the completion of the work, but the providence of God, though mysterious, is always wise.**
C. H. SPURGEON: The latter part of his Commentary was completed by other hands. The writers were Evans, Brown, Mayo, Bays, Rosewell, Harriss, Atkinson, Smith, Tong, Wright, Merrell, Hill, Reynolds, and Billingsley, all ministers. They have executed their work exceedingly well, have worked in much of the matter which Henry had collected, and have done their best to follow his methods, but their combined production is far inferior to Matthew Henry himself, and any reader will soon detect the difference.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Good Matthew Henry said, as he was expiring, to his friends in the room, “You have heard and read the words of many dying men―and these are mine; I have found a life of communion with God, the happiest life in the world.”
___________________
*Editor’s Note: During his lifetime, George Whitefield read through Matthew Henry’s Commentary four times, often on his knees, as he prayed over what he was reading.
**Editor’s Note: Matthew Henry began writing his Bible Commentary in 1704, and began publishing it in 1710. By Henry’s death in 1714, he had completed Genesis to Acts. Working from Henry’s own notes, his minister friends completed Romans to Revelation.
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