Well, I agree that the Bible text is preeminent, and most commentators have very little if anything useful to say. As I commented somewhere else, they tend to talk about the easy verses and ignore the hard ones . . . so I've gradually abandoned the use of commentaries over the years.

That said, I do think reference Bibles are useful. It helps me to know where other passages are that treat the same topic. It's helpful to know the parallel passages. It's helpful to have notes that clarify who was king of what, when. Etc.

I have the Full Life Study Bible (pentecostal) and the Nelson Study Bible (essentially the Liberty University commentary), but they're reference books, not the Bibles I read, and if I look at them once a month, that's a lot.

But the Thompson Bible is useful for me. It organizes a lot of Bible material in a way that I can't do myself, mentally. I find it very non-doctrinal. It just lays out a lot of "here's what the Bible says about X" kind of information. I'm not bound to it, but it's there if I need it. What's the harm of saying "OK, now look at this other verse"? That's essentially what the Thompson's does.

Lee