God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul

by Gordon D. Fee

Book Overview

"Fee's book is the most comprehensive treatment available of Paul's understanding of the Holy Spirit, a topic that has rarely received sufficient attention in studies of Pauline theology. Fee's method... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801046211
• ISBN13: 9780801046216
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Length: 992 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Long and lengthy but worth the effort

Gordon Fee may be the outstanding new testament scholar in North America and this is most likely to be regarded as his finest work. Fee goes through the letters of Paul on a verse by verse basis locating passages that refer to the Holy Spirit. Fee carefully chooses other passages where he feels that the Holy Spirit is inferred and also is careful with his exegisis of passages that may refer to the Holy Spirit or to "the spirit" in a non-specific way. This book provides a powerful study of Paul and also shows how we, as modern day christians, underestimate the power of the spirit in our lives. For Paul the Holy Spirit was a real and dominating prescence and this wonderful study elevates that part of Paul's writings to a new plane. This book is huge but Fee is such an enjoyable writer that the time spent reading this book passes very quickly. If you are interested in Paul and/or the Holy Spirit then this book is indespensable.

Understand the Holy Spirit in Paul's letters

God's Empowering Presence is not a small book, nor light reading. In developing an article for the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, Fee realized very little secondary literature existed on the topic of the Holy Spirit as seen in the letters of Paul of Tarsus. Because of the dearth of Pneumatological studies in general, no one had ever thought to write a text specifically focused on how Paul viewed the person and work of the Holy Spirit. So, Fee sought to remedy this. In doing so he realized that he could not simply make assertions without first having a firm foundation of Biblical analysis with which he could base his findings. Understanding that this had not been done in a way which focused on the broader understanding of the Holy Spirit in the Pauline corpus, he felt he had to create his own body of textual analysis which went through the various letters and analyzed verse by verse, use by use, Paul's understanding of pneumatology. It is this textual analysis which comprises the great bulk of God's Empowering Presence. Having exegeted the great bulk of the Pauline Epistles, Fee then feels able to make some observations and conclusions about Paul's general pneumatology in the last 100 pages of this nearly 1000 page book. He concludes that the Spirit was for Paul more real and evident than we can possibly imagine in our day and age, that the presence of the Spirit was an assumed reality, because of which specific theological discussion is limited. But in the off hand remarks, asides, benedictions, and other such casual comments Gordon Fee is able to discover and lay out eight primary conclusions about Pauline pneumatology. These conclusions are not meant as simply academic points of interest, but are in keeping with Fee's profound pastoral sensitivity and seek to point out ways in which the modern church can regain some of the liveliness and fullness that is found in Paul's understanding of the Holy Spirit. If you don't care about the exegesis (though as a reference I can't imagine not caring) Fee has another book called Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God which consists of just his conclusions and insights.

Great book, but be ready to trudge through tons of stuff

This was the most excellent book I have read discussing the work of the Holy Spirit,and it's importance to the Christian. Fee caused me to do a lot of thinking about my previous beliefs. He challenged me. THe one problem with the book, and Fee admits as much in the introduction is that the first section of the book is absolutely exhaustive. Not only is it an exhaustive discussion of the Pauline texts dealing with the Spirit, but it will "exhaust" you in reading through it. However, don't let that stop you from reading this fantastic work. It could change your life and appreciation for the wisdom of GOd.

A MUST for the study of Paul's teachings on the Holy Spirit

In the Pauline scholarship, Paul's pneumatology is often overlooked. One purpose of Fee in writing this book is trying to show how significant the teachings of the Holy Spirit is in the Pauline theology. It is related to various theological themes in Paul's theology such as Christology, soteriology, eschatology, anthropology and Paul's view to the Law. This book is divided into two parts: the first part, two-third of the whole book, is devoted to careful exegesis of all the Pauline texts about the Holy Spirit. I find it inspiring especially in his exegesis on the 'Spirit's' text in Romans. The second part is his systematic treatment/ exegetical synthesis of Paul's pneumatology based on the exegetical results of the first part. In this part Fee interacts with recent NT studies on the Holy Spirit such as Dunn and Scott, protesting against their approach of reducing the Holy Spirit as but equivalent expression of the experience of the rised Lord Jesus Christ. The most interesting part is his "pneumatic criticism" against "The New perspective on Paul" proposed by Dunn and alike. Before you are immersed into this 'great book', about 1000 pages, you can read first Fee's essay 'Paul's conversion as Key to His Understanding of the Spirit' in the book "The Road from Damascus: the Impact of Paul's Conversion on His Life, Thought and Ministry", edited by R.N. Longenecker, p.166-183. This essay may give you a quick look on Paul's pneumatology, which may give you more motivation to read, at least, the second part of this his commentary as well as NT theological book on Paul.

A comprehensive book on the Holy Spirit

This large and carefully written book would be a superb gift for your pastor. Fee, one of the leading contemporary New Testament scholars--in evangelical and non-evangelical circles--high-lights, analyzes, exegetes, and summarizes every mention of the Holy Spirit in Paul's writings. This outstanding book is not marred by a dry-as-dust treatment of this aspect of God's empowering Presence in the life of the church. No better book on the subject is on the market today. As a gift for your pastor, Fee's work will be at his side when he prepares for Sunday's proclamation, for it was written, the author says, to get to "the heart of Paul's view of things regarding the Spirit." (p. 896) Fee succeeds admirably.