In "Open to the Spirit," Scot McKnight offers a compelling call to engage with the Holy Spirit as a necessary aspect of the Christian life. McKnight blends personal history with sound theology and Biblical exegesis to invite earnest disciples of Christ to discover the value of a deepening relationship with the Holy Spirit. He makes it clear that the Holy Spirit and all of the gifts given through the Holy Spirit remain valid for the Christian today. He explores the value of engaging with the Holy Spirit through benefits such as moral guidance, healing of physical disease, strengthening of Christian community, assurance in Christian witness, and a life filled with worship of our Creator God. Diving into this book will encourage your walk with God and open a longing for communing with the Holy Spirit.
This book's greatest weakness is also its greatest strength. McKnight trims away the academic flavor of many books on the Holy Spirit so that the true inquirer can quickly launch into an understanding of this person of the Godhead. The reason this is a weakness is that the book sometimes comes across as not grounded in scholarship. But the great boon found in this approach is that the Holy Spirit becomes accessible to everyone just as the Holy Spirit should be. If a person is looking for a treatise on pneumatology this book is not likely to satisfy, but if a person is looking for an invitation to understand this person of the Trinity and engage with the Holy Spirit then this book is a solid beginning.
I received this book as part of the Blogging for Books program with the Random House Publishing Group.
No comments:
Post a Comment