The theological climate to-day is markedly more genial than it was thirty-two years ago, when this our Society was founded. Then we were living in a theological ice-age. Theology had largely lost its appeal, alike for preachers and for scholars. The demand was for histories of religion, not for theology. The Bible commentator was considered to have done his duty if he explained what the sacred writer meant when he wrote what he did. In the Preface to his Commentary—dated May 1919—Peake wrote:

It (the present work) is not intended to be homiletical or devotional, but to convey with precision … the meaning of the original writers, and reconstruct the conditions in which they worked and of which they wrote. It will thus, while not explicitly devotional or practical, provide that accurate interpretation of the text through which alone the sound basis for devotional use and practical application can be laid.