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.

The mere thought of writing a

commentary on the whole Bible was a

daunting one. Many questions come with

that thought. Number one: are you crazy?

That’s kind of the first thought. The

whole Bible, like 66 books, how do you

cover every passage and do it well? Then

you add to that, you have a life. You know,

you’ve got day-to-day ministry, you’ve

got ten thousand people in the

congregation you’re responsible to serve,

you’ve got a wife, four children, thirteen

grandchildren, two great-grandchildren,

who love not to leave you alone. I mean,

you got all of this and

yet, the thought of doing a Bible

commentary. So, it was daunting, yet

intriguing. And what was intriguing about

it, because there a lot of commentaries,

is what I thought would make it unique.

And that is this worldview that our

whole ministry operates off of: the

kingdom agenda, the visible manifestation

of the comprehensive rule of God over

every area of life. And how I believe

that that does thread through all of the

scripture as the purpose of the Bible.

And so, it would it would kind of be a

unique contribution but a whole lot of

work. So, at that time we were

contemplating it, I’d been in ministry

preaching and studying the word for forty

years. I would begin a journey, a ten-year

journey, to contemplate, to begin to

organize, begin to arrange, to begin the

plan, to begin to rethink whether I really

want to do this. So, this labor of love, this

legacy work of the Bible Commentary is

really ten years worth of work to cover

every book of the Bible. So, I wouldn’t

trade anything in the world for the

privilege, the opportunity, to end the

challenge, but I am so glad that God

allowed me the privilege—and it is a

privilege—to be able to handle the holy

book. I hope you feel the same way as you

go through the Tony Evans Bible commentary.