Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today

by Craig S. Keener

Book Overview

Affirms the validity of spiritual gifts while seeking to restore a biblical emphasis on why the gifts are given.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801022665
• ISBN13: 9780801022661
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Joel Comiskey

As far as I'm concerned this is the best book I've ever read on the Holy Spirit in the church today. Keenan does AN EXCELLENT job of balancing Spirit and Truth. He skillfully handles the Word of God on the subject of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and tongues. Rather than trying to prove his own narrow conviction, he helps the reader understand the strong points of both Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals. The credibility of this author is seen in the fact that Keenan is a Baptist Biblical scholar who teaches at Eastern Theological Seminary--yet he boldly shares his personal experience of speaking in tongues and practicing the gifts of the Spirit. His writings and personal experience bring out the best of both worlds--careful scholarship mixed with a hunger for the living God. I was encouraged to want the same thing. Let me say once again that this book is my HANDS DOWN favorite book on the Holy Spirit. We need more people like Keenan who are willing to look honestly at both sides of the issue and then to give honest answers about what both sides have in common.

a good book

I haven't read this book fully and carefully, but I have read its previous edition, 3 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT. Primarily I want to address the other reviewer's comments about cessationists being cautious about subjective or personal testimony in this area. While I don't want to belittle the need for adherence to the Scriptures in these matters and the need to check these things out by the Scriptures, and to study what the Scriptures teach about these things, much of the Bible IS personal experience. It's what men and women experienced of God. And though "these things have been written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have Life in His name" (John 20:31), New Testament faith is also based on subjective and personal testimony to these things in our lives (Galatians 3:5). As one who does NOT believe that God stopped doing these things with the passing of the apostles or the close of the canon, nor that the Scriptures teach such a doctrine, I expect believers to be able to give subjective and personal testimony to these things as a sign that "God is among [them]" (I Corinthians 14:25). As Philip said to Nathanael: "Come and see" (John 1:46). Keener provides both Scriptural arguments and personal testimony to the validity and reality of this theology.