Lectures Archives - Bob on Books

The Kingdom of God is Among You

The Kingdom of God is Among You, Gordon D. Fee and Cherith Fee Nordling, foreword by Craig S. Keener. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9781666732924) 2025.

Summary: A New Testament theology drawn from lectures emphasizing the kingdom of God as a framework.

Gordon D. Fee was one of the outstanding New Testament scholars of my generation. He was a Pentecostal who taught at evangelical seminaries. His God’s Empowering Presence was probably one of the best books on the Holy Spirit I’ve read. He wrote academic commentaries and book on Paul. And he contributed to wider understanding of the Bible (with Douglas Stuart) with his How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth and How to Read the Bible Book By Book. I gave the former book to many of the students I worked with. One thing he never did was publish a book on New Testament theology.

However, he gave lectures to students on the topic. One series was recorded and transcribed. From these, his daughter, theologian Cherith Fee Nordling set out to edit these and turn them in the book. She describes the process in a moving Preface, set in the context of her father’s advancing Alzheimer’s illness and death.

The first lecture lays out Fee’s understanding of the nature and message of New Testament theology. He notes that the New Testament writings do not expound theology systematically. Rather, he says, “We must never forget that the writings of the New Testament are ad hoc documents, written in each and every case to speak to a specific need. Thus, rather than careful, systematic presentations of theology (such as in a book or a lecture), the earliest Christian theology is worked out in the marketplace, as it were.” With that in mind, Fee sees the New Testament concerned with God, people and redemption, captured in the idea of the presence of the kingdom. He works with the following definition of New Testament theology, which he unpacks in the book:

“Through the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord, our gracious and loving God has effected eschatological salvation for his new covenant people, the church, who now, as they await Christ’s coming, live the life of the future by the power of the Spirit” (p. 13).

Then the following lectures unpack this definition. Firstly, lectures two, three, and four focus on the kingdom of God, its presence in Christ and how its fulfillment is anticipated in what already is seen in the works of Christ and in the life of the people of God. Secondly, lectures five through nine address salvation in the person of Christ, in the writings of Paul, John, and the other New Testament writers. Thirdly, lectures ten through twelve center on Jesus the Savior. Beginning with the gospels he considers Jesus as Messiah, Son of Man, and suffering servant. Then he explores the contribution of Paul, John, and Hebrews to our Christology.

Fourthly, lectures thirteen to fifteen approach the New Testament from the perspective of the people of God, following the same pattern of the gospels, Paul, and John. Finally, lecture sixteen addresses the continuity and discontinuity between Old and New Testaments and the consummation of all things. The book concludes with a benediction focusing on the Trinitarian formulation of 2 Corinthians 13:14 and emphasizing the personal nature of the Holy Spirit.

There are several things I appreciate about this work. First are the prayers that appear throughout, at the beginning of each set of three lectures. In addition, unlike some New Testament theologies that spend much time in technical discussions, referencing other scholars, this is Fee with his Bible, sketching out the major themes of the New Testament. Scholarly discussion and devotion are never far apart with Fee. Discussing Jesus’ teaching about titles, he turns to his own recognition of what being called Doctor Fee instead of Gordon and how we cease being brothers and sisters when we invoke titles. Above all, we witness his devotion to Christ. He writes:

“I suggest to you that the church could be effective once again in the world. This is the passion that infuses these lectures. If I could somehow communicate, inculcate, and instill one passion into our Christian lives in the present age, it would be to stop being in step with our own age, and to live fully as eschatological people. I’m not here with you merely as an academic exercise but with a desire to recapture the theology of the early church, the eschatological hope of the Spirit given already in Jesus and his kingdom that set the church ablaze. Jesus’ coming set the future in motion. The coming age has dawned. With the early Christians, may we await the consummation of his second coming as active participants in that future even now” (pp. 36-37).

This is a wonderful posthumous gift to the church from Gordon D. Fee. While treating the writings of the New Testament individually, he also sees the whole as part of God’s story. Read this work to know the story and better tell the story. Finally, Fee opens this work by saying, “the proper aim of all true theology is doxology.” Do not be surprised if, in your reading, you have to stop and worship.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles (The Ken and Jean Hansen Lectureship Series), Timothy Larsen. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018.

Summary: Three lectures on the works of George MacDonald with responses that focus on the miraculous in these works, particularly with regard to the incarnation, faith amid doubt, and the re-enchantment of life.

Wheaton College is the home of the Marion E. Wade Center, which houses materials by and about seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy l. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Each year the center hosts an annual lecture series named in honor of Ken and Jean Hansen, who were instrumental in establishing the center, which honors the founder of ServiceMaster, with whom Ken Hansen worked.

That is background to this book, containing the 2018 lectures by Timothy Larsen, a professor of history and Christian Thought at Wheaton, and three responses by Wheaton colleagues. The lectures focus broadly on the theme of the miraculous.

The first of these centers on the incarnation. Larsen notes a theological shift in the nineteenth century from a focus on the atonement, the death of Christ and its implications, to the incarnation, the coming of Christ in the flesh. Once consequence was a shift in focus from Easter to Christmas being the great Christian holiday and Larsen notes how this is evident in many of MacDonald’s work focusing around Christmas. Accompanying this is a focus on the love of God in MacDonald’s works. James Edward Beitler III in his response elaborates the theme of incarnation in Phantastes, the two natures of Christ, and the idea of embodied thought.

The second lecture considers doubt and the idea of “the crisis of doubt” in Victorian writing. MacDonald believed in honest or holy doubt that was an expression of faith and maintained strong friendships with notorious doubts like Tennyson (e.g. “In Memoriam”). He proposes that this is integral to a process of reaching a deeper, more settled Christian faith, as occurs in his character Thomas Wingfold. Most significant for MacDonald are the times his characters trust and obey in the face of doubt. In MacDonald’s own life, this process accounts for his profound belief in miracles, including the resurrection, which sustained him in the loss of two children. Richard Hughes Gibson responds in considering how this works out in MacDonald’s ideas about poetry.

The third and final lecture focuses on the theme of re-enchantment and centers on the image of the “rosefire” in The Princess and the Goblin. MacDonald connected this image to God’s sanctifying work, the love that purifies and explores how this idea runs through MacDonald’s fantasies. Along the way, we also learn about his unhappy clerical career and his ideas about purgation, if not purgatory. Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner keys off two mentions of poetry and draws in the work of Luther, Donne, Blake, Richard John Neuhaus, and Frederick Buechner to show how fairy tales were a way into reality, particularly the reality of eschatological hope, for MacDonald.

This is a delightful addition to the library of any MacDonald fan. It struck me that it offers yet another example of the truth we often find in fiction. Personally, the second lecture on doubt spoke the most to me. I work with those whose research leads, as it would any thinking person, to questions and doubts. Too often, I believe, we confuse faith with certainty, which is faith’s opposite. We miss how honest or even holy doubt itself, especially when accompanied by the obedience that trusts that what one has believed is so, even in the face of questions, is perhaps a singular form of faith.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.