In this very accessible book, Gregg R. Allison shares insights about the Holy Spirit, helping Christians better understand this member of the Trinity and the Spirit's work in their lives. Allison begins by writing about why the Spirit is an important part of the Christian life, and he unpacks key theological ideas about the Trinity. After this, he focuses on different points of doctrine and application, such as the Holy Spirit's work in salvation, conviction, illumination and intercession, and in the church. Allison is very thorough and covers a wide variety of topics, showing how integral the Holy Spirit is to every element of the Christian life. He also includes reflection questions that readers can consider alone or with a church group.

All throughout the book, Allison uses Scripture to illustrate and support different points, helping his readers understand what the Bible teaches about the Spirit. I wish that some chapters had further unpacked controversies about issues like whether or not the Holy Spirit speaks to believers today, but Allison always summarizes people's differing opinions in fair and even-handed ways, correctly representing how people explain their different beliefs and support them with Scripture. That makes the book appropriate for people from many different denominational backgrounds.

Towards the end, Allison writes about spiritual gifts and the debated gifts, and he summarizes different positions on things like prophecy and speaking in tongues. My one critique about this section is that when he warns against an overemphasis on gifting that makes someone feel entitled to only serve in their preferred way, he says that churches need "able-bodied" workers for all kinds of ministries. I'm sure he really meant 'capable and willing,' but the unfortunate phrasing forgets how disabled people can and do serve their churches in many different ways, at many different levels of ministry.

This is great for Christians who are new to learning about the Holy Spirit, or who want to further refine their knowledge. Because this book covers so many topics, the chapters are fairly basic and don't get into esoteric theological debates, making this perfect for believers who want to learn more without doing an academic deep dive. Allison's personal touches through stories from his own life will also help engage readers who wouldn't normally read a theological work, and this book is a very helpful introduction or refresher.

I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a resourceful survey concerning God’s Holy Spirit. It includes questions to help the reader both assess their understanding of God’s Spirit, how they view Him and His “many-sided” work, and how to apply what they learn. Where there is more than one view on topics, both are presented without asserting that one or the other is correct or not, making this book more accessible to all.

I was pleased that the book is written with a conversational tone that will help believers grow in knowing the Holy Spirit’s role as the third person of the Trinity in far more aspects than many may be familiar.

My favorite chapter was 15: “The Holy Spirit Guides Us to Do God’s Will,” which contained various examples from Scripture and helpful biblical wisdom and practical instruction such as:

“Unless we adopt a posture of yieldedness to the Spirit, we should not expect Him to guide us clearly or grant us discernment regarding His direction.”

Chapter 4 on the Trinity was the most challenging chapter and I wish this could have been expounded more. I wonder if a different way of explaining it would help, or maybe it is simply just because this is a topic of theology that is beyond our understanding in many ways. I will suggest: Don’t skip the footnotes in this chapter because they do help some.

All in all, this is a great book surveying the Third Person of the Godhead, delving deep enough for most believers to learn and glean from a treasure trove of information on the Spirit of God.

Thank you to the publisher for a review copy of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.