HOLY SPIRIT — LIVING GOD
A biblical, practical and simple guide to the Holy Spirit
By Oliver Rice. Grace Publications. 94 pages. £5.50
ISBN 978 0 946 462 844
Good teaching on the Holy Spirit has been available for many years, but perhaps it has been too formidable for many, and so he is very poorly understood across the church. A book that covers the main things briefly and biblically will be a valuable asset.
That is what we have here: framed in good language for the average churchgoer, and far from daunting — the main section is only 76 pages. The Appendix (17 pages) provides annotated quotations from John Calvin’s writings on the Holy Spirit. Rice makes no claim to offer anything ‘new’, but he gives a succinct and faithful account of the doctrines taught by such as Calvin and Owen, in ten chapters from ‘The Person’ of the Holy Spirit, to the Spirit as ‘The Lord God’, ‘The Author’, through to ‘The Guarantee’.
Brief, beneficial, biblical
On each point, Rice provides clear and appropriate biblical support, which should equip readers well. That is clearly a leading object of the book, as each chapter also closes with ‘Action Points’, providing excellent leads for expansion and application.
The only slight lack I felt was in ‘8: The Power Source’. The focus is almost entirely on the Spirit being the source of power for evangelism and mission. Not to take away from that, little was mentioned here of the indwelling Spirit’s complete work of enabling us to honour Christ in every part of life. Also, on finding a ‘title’ of this kind at page 57, some reference back to chapter 1 (The Person) may have been useful, to avoid the persistent trap of treating the Spirit as just a ‘power’ and not a person.
In our day, such work as this is very good to have to hand on this important theme, simply to read or for group study.
David D. Miller,
minister, Cobham Presbyterian Church, Surrey
