Gordon D. Fee (1934–2022) was the leading Pentecostal New Testament scholar of his generation and an ordained Assemblies of God minister.

Best known for How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, a popular book on hermeneutics he co-authored with Douglas Stuart, Fee focused his academic research on the apostle Paul, writing commentaries on his letters, as well as expositions of his theology, including God’s Empowering Presence and Pauline Christology.

The Kingdom of God Is Among You presents Fee’s lectures on New Testament theology, which have been transcribed and edited by theologian Cherith Fee Nordling, his daughter.

As an academic discipline, New Testament theology describes what unifies the 27 canonical books without sacrificing their distinctive emphases.

According to Fee, the New Testament’s “key focal concerns” are inaugurated eschatology, salvation, Christ, and people. Each is necessary to describe New Testament theology; none is sufficient by itself. Even so, Fee summarizes them with the catchphrase, “salvation in Christ.”

After describing the nature, goal, and method of New Testament theology in Chapter 1, Fee examines inaugurated eschatology in Chapters 2–4.

“The future has already begun,” Fee writes, by way of definition. This entails two things: “The consummation of all things is absolutely guaranteed in the risen Christ and the Spirit,” and “One’s present existence is therefore altogether determined by this reality.”

Fee traces this eschatological framework throughout the “corpora” of the New Testament: the Synoptic Gospels, Pauline epistles, Johannine literature (gospel, letters, Revelation), Petrine epistles, and remaining New Testament writings.

Turning to salvation in Chapters 5–9, Fee writes, “The New Testament writers always take salvation in Christ to mean God’s eschatological salvation: new life given by the Father, effected by Christ, and appropriated by the Holy Spirit.”

Just as a diamond has various facets, so the New Testament corpora depict salvation in various ways. The Synoptics use “kingdom of God.” Paul employs the metaphors of “atonement,” “redemption,” justification,” and “reconciliation.” John’s Gospel focuses on “eternal life.” These are complementary, not contradictory, ways of describing salvation.

The Kingdom of God Is Among You will help readers understand New Testament theology in all its unity and diversity.

Fee examines Christology in Chapters 10–12. Some New Testament scholars distinguish the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith.” The former was a first-century Jewish peasant with a knack for teaching, while the latter was the invention of theologians long after the fact.

By contrast, Fee argues that the New Testament corpora all present the Savior as God incarnate, though they use various terms to describe that reality: “Son of Man,” “Son of God,” “the Word became flesh,” “Lord,” etc.

Finally, Fee turns to God’s “eschatological people” — i.e., the Church — in Chapters 13–15. Here, two themes dominate: community and ethics. Fee writes:

Salvation is not about fitting individuals for heaven or establishing one-on-one relationships with God. The goal of salvation is to form a people who are fit for a human life that is empowered by God to bear the character of God.

Fee is right to emphasize the communal character of Christian life, because biblical peoplehood is a necessary corrective to hyper-individualism of Western society.

Chapter 16 concludes the book by exploring the New Testament’s continuity and discontinuity with the Old Testament. The New fulfills the Old’s promises, but that fulfillment involves a fundamental transformation. Fee writes:

The key issue in New Testament theology is fundamentally related to recognizing the coming of Christ and the Spirit and their further accomplishments of God’s new thing, while simultaneously discerning the ways in which God’s new thing remains clearly tied to the former covenant.

Fee goes on to apply this insight to the way all things find their eschatological consummation in Jesus Christ.

I recommend The Kingdom of God Is Among You to all Christian readers, especially ministers who preach and teach. It will help them understand New Testament theology in all its unity and diversity.

General readers sometimes avoid academic theology because of its complex arguments and specialized jargon. Fee’s book is the result of decades of research, but he spoke and wrote with admirable clarity.

Finally, Fee reminds readers that studying the New Testament is not merely an intellectual exercise. “The proper aim of all true theology is doxology,” he wrote. “Theology that does not begin and end in worship is not biblical at all, but rather the product of western philosophy.”

Fee himself notes many times when his study of the New Testament brought forth tears of joy because of the wondrous love of God in Christ.

May his book have a similar effect on its readers!

Book Reviewed

Gordon D. Fee and Cherith Fee Nordling, The Kingdom of God Is Among You: Lectures to My Students on New Testament Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2025).

This review appears in the Summer 2025 issue of Influence magazine.