Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder, and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets, and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.
One of the problems of doing a
commentary is that you’re dealing with
an inexhaustible truth that is the Word
of God, so you always are growing in your
knowledge of it. So, I had to look at all
that I had preached, I had to look at what I
had not preached yet and taught on, and
then go back and study those passages
and actually sit down with paper and pen
and write. To be honest, I had to correct
some things I had preached many years
ago due to maturity and growth and deeper
understanding of the Word of God.
It began to come together and I began to
see this worldview weave throughout all
of the scripture that it made sense to
do the project and to see people
understand the concept of advancing the
kingdom of God as the theme of the
commentary, because it’s the theme of the
Bible, and therefore should be the theme
of their lives. And so, it got exciting.
Now, I must admit when you’re getting up
at 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning to work
on the commentary when you’ve got a full
day of activities ahead, it wasn’t
always fun, but it was always a challenge.
And so, that became for a 10-year period
of time, in and out, a lifestyle to work
on this, re-work on this, re-read it,
re-correct it, re-analyze it, have our editors
feeding me back questions, and going back
at it again and again and again, having
to recognize when you’re to exegetical
and not applicational enough, but having
to recognize when you’re too
applicational and the people need more
content explanation, so you’re walking
the thin line of making truth relevant.
And we’ve tried to do this in the Tony
Evans Bible commentary
as we try to maintain the theme of
advancing the kingdom of God. I must
admit, having completed almost 1500 pages
that are in this commentary, when I
finally sent in the last book that we
finished, and all 66 books were completed,
part of me was ready to go to heaven
because I felt like, “What more can you do
on earth then have such a legacy work as a
work like this?” So, I am proud of what
God has allowed me to do over these
over-50 years of preaching his Word, and over
these 10 years of working on this Legacy
Project, the Bible Commentary, because I
figure it will help people grasp the Word
of God and see how its unified while
being able to look at every one of the
66 books and see its contribution to the
kingdom of God, while at the same time
looking at each passage of each of the
books to see how the parts fit into the
whole of the book that fits into the
whole of Scripture.