The John Phillips Commentary Series

Exploring Genesis

An Expository Commentary

by

John Phillips

© 1980 by John Phillips. Database © 2009 WORDsearch Corp.

Foreword

For many years now I have been pursuing the expository approach in my preaching. On Sunday morning and again on Sunday night I prayerfully select a book of the Bible, then expound that book to my people, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. I have found that method extremely rewarding. It blesses my own life, feeds my flock, and reaches out to the unsaved.

Those who follow the expository method are aware of the need to have good expository commentaries available to enhance and illumine one’s own efforts. A few years ago, while preaching through the book of Romans, I came across a volume entitled Exploring Romans by John Phillips. I had not heard of John Phillips, but was immediately blessed by his book. In subsequent years I obtained other volumes by him. I found Exploring the Scriptures, Exploring Revelation, and Exploring Hebrews equally helpful and inspiring.

Soon thereafter, I learned that Mr. Phillips was residing in my home state of Georgia. Through a mutual friend I was able to meet Mr. Phillips and invite him to lead a Bible conference here at Dauphin Way. I was thrilled to discover that he was even better in person than on the printed page! My people and I were marvelously fed as he ministered the Word in our midst. I consider him to be one of the finest Bible teachers in the world today.

It was with real joy that I received the news that he was preparing a book on Genesis. He was gracious enough to send me his manuscript. I have been reading his material on Genesis with amazement and gratitude. I have many books on Genesis, but none is so helpful and enriching as this one. Mr. Phillips’ work is scholarly, scriptural, and simple. It attains the rare combination of being both theological and devotional. His outlines are superb. His interpretations are fresh, yet germane. His illustrations are appropriate to the truth being exposed. His use of imagination in the study of personalities throughout Genesis is the best I have ever read.

I heartily recommend this volume to pastors, evangelists, Sunday school teachers, and all who want greater insight into the book of beginnings. I predict it will become the most popular commentary on Genesis written in our time.

Jerry Vines

Pastor, Dauphin Way Baptist Church

Mobile, Alabama

Preface

It is a book of facts, a book of firsts, a book of faith, a book of forecasts, a book of funerals. It has been called “the seedplot of the Bible” because all the vast forests of Scripture start there as seedlings. It is said to give us the beginning of everything except God. It is the book of Genesis.

Genesis is the opening crescendo of Scripture, for God does not begin the book with a timid, tentative note or two. He begins it with the thunder of drums as worlds leap out of nowhere to populate the skies. He begins it with the crash of cymbals as the human ...