Gordon Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God
This week I finished working through Gordon Fee’s excellent book, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. This 203 page book is a condensed, re-packaged version of Fee’s 992 page tome, God’s Empowering Presence.
Perhaps someday I’ll work through the 992 page version. But for now, Fee’s 203 page work will receive a prominent place on my shelf, replacing J.I. Packer’s Keep In Step With The Spirit as my favorite, most helpful read on the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
From the opening pages:
If the church is going to be effective in our postmodern world, we need to stop paying mere lip service to the Spirit and to recapture Paul’s perspective: the Spirit as the experienced, empowering return of God’s own personal presence in and among us, who enables us to live as a radically eschatological people in the present world while we await the consummation. All the rest, including fruit and gifts, serve to that end.
This book looks great! — I’ve added it to my list of books that I want to read.
We read some of Fee’s stuff in our N.T. Genre class this spring, and his daughter, Cherith Fee Nordling, will be filling a position on our theology faculty next year.
I have the big one (God’s Empowering Presence), which is basically a commentary. It’s great as a reference. I have used it many times. It looks like the condensed version is basically the synthesis/articles out of the big version. I’m sure it’s a helpful read, and if you don’t already have it the full length is a great commentary on every reference to the “Spirit” in Paul’s writings.
