Direct Answer
Christians should treat commentaries, study Bibles, and popular explanations as potentially useful guides, but not as final authorities. Bercot’s illustration teaches that even expert-written secondary sources can be seriously wrong, so claims should be checked against primary evidence.
Support from Transcript
- Professor Newton warned, “Never stop until you have gone to the primary sources.” - Legal encyclopedias were described as tools to find “the actual court decisions and statutes,” not as places to stop. - Bercot’s encyclopedia said the law was “squarely against” his client, but the actual court decisions showed “the law was just the opposite.” - He says, “Legal encyclopedias are full of errors,” even though they are written by attorneys and law professors. - He applies the same concern to religious sources: “If legal secondary sources cannot be relied upon, how much less so can religious secondary sources?” - He includes “commentaries, study Bibles, Bible dictionaries, church history books, and other Christian reference works” in his critique.
Discussion Follow-ups
The point is not that all such tools are useless, but that they should not replace firsthand examination of the relevant sources.