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The Kingdom of God Is among You: Lectures to My Students on New Testament Theology
396 pages, Paperback
Published March 17, 2025
About the author
Gordon D. Fee
72 books220 followersGordon Fee was Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Regent College, where he taught for sixteen years. His teaching experience also included serving schools in Washington, California, Kentucky, as well as Wheaton College in Illinois (five years) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts (twelve years).
Gordon Fee was a noted New Testament scholar, having published several books and articles in his field of specialization, New Testament textual criticism. He also published a textbook on New Testament interpretation, co-authored two books for lay people on biblical interpretation, as well as scholarly-popular commentaries on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus and on Galatians, and major commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Philippians. He is also the author of a major work on the Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ in the letters of Paul.
Gordon Fee served as the general editor of the New International Commentary series, as well as on the NIV revision committee that produced the TNIV. Besides his ability as a biblical scholar, he was a noted teacher and conference speaker. He has given the Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar lectures on fifteen college campuses as well as the annual NT lectures at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, North Park Seminary, the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, the Canadian Theological Seminary, Duke Divinity School, Golden Gate Baptist, Anderson School of Theology, Asbury Seminary, and Chrichton College. An ordained minister with the Assemblies of God, Gordon Fee was well known for his manifest concern for the renewal of the church.
Gordon Fee was married and had four married children.
Gordon Fee was a noted New Testament scholar, having published several books and articles in his field of specialization, New Testament textual criticism. He also published a textbook on New Testament interpretation, co-authored two books for lay people on biblical interpretation, as well as scholarly-popular commentaries on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus and on Galatians, and major commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Philippians. He is also the author of a major work on the Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ in the letters of Paul.
Gordon Fee served as the general editor of the New International Commentary series, as well as on the NIV revision committee that produced the TNIV. Besides his ability as a biblical scholar, he was a noted teacher and conference speaker. He has given the Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar lectures on fifteen college campuses as well as the annual NT lectures at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, North Park Seminary, the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, the Canadian Theological Seminary, Duke Divinity School, Golden Gate Baptist, Anderson School of Theology, Asbury Seminary, and Chrichton College. An ordained minister with the Assemblies of God, Gordon Fee was well known for his manifest concern for the renewal of the church.
Gordon Fee was married and had four married children.
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June 20, 2025
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.
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!
P.S. I wrote this review for the Summer 2025 issue of Influence Magazine.
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.
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!
P.S. I wrote this review for the Summer 2025 issue of Influence Magazine.
December 22, 2025
Summary: A New Testament theology drawn from lectures emphasizing the kingdom of God as a framework.
Gordon D. Fee was one of the outstanding New Testament scholars of my generation. He was a Pentecostal who taught at evangelical seminaries. His God’s Empowering Presence was probably one of the best books on the Holy Spirit I’ve read. He wrote academic commentaries and book on Paul. And he contributed to wider understanding of the Bible (with Douglas Stuart) with his How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth and How to Read the Bible Book By Book. I gave the former book to many of the students I worked with. One thing he never did was publish a book on New Testament theology.
However, he gave lectures to students on the topic. One series was recorded and transcribed. From these, his daughter, theologian Cherith Fee Nordling set out to edit these and turn them in the book. She describes the process in a moving Preface, set in the context of her father’s advancing Alzheimer’s illness and death.
The first lecture lays out Fee’s understanding of the nature and message of New Testament theology. He notes that the New Testament writings do not expound theology systematically. Rather, he says, “We must never forget that the writings of the New Testament are ad hoc documents, written in each and every case to speak to a specific need. Thus, rather than careful, systematic presentations of theology (such as in a book or a lecture), the earliest Christian theology is worked out in the marketplace, as it were.” With that in mind, Fee sees the New Testament concerned with God, people and redemption, captured in the idea of the presence of the kingdom. He works with the following definition of New Testament theology, which he unpacks in the book:
“Through the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord, our gracious and loving God has effected eschatological salvation for his new covenant people, the church, who now, as they await Christ’s coming, live the life of the future by the power of the Spirit” (p. 13).
Then the following lectures unpack this definition. Firstly, lectures two, three, and four focus on the kingdom of God, its presence in Christ and how its fulfillment is anticipated in what already is seen in the works of Christ and in the life of the people of God. Secondly, lectures five through nine address salvation in the person of Christ, in the writings of Paul, John, and the other New Testament writers. Thirdly, lectures ten through twelve center on Jesus the Savior. Beginning with the gospels he considers Jesus as Messiah, Son of Man, and suffering servant. Then he explores the contribution of Paul, John, and Hebrews to our Christology.
Fourthly, lectures thirteen to fifteen approach the New Testament from the perspective of the people of God, following the same pattern of the gospels, Paul, and John. Finally, lecture sixteen addresses the continuity and discontinuity between Old and New Testaments and the consummation of all things. The book concludes with a benediction focusing on the Trinitarian formulation of 2 Corinthians 13:14 and emphasizing the personal nature of the Holy Spirit.
There are several things I appreciate about this work. First are the prayers that appear throughout, at the beginning of each set of three lectures. In addition, unlike some New Testament theologies that spend much time in technical discussions, referencing other scholars, this is Fee with his Bible, sketching out the major themes of the New Testament. Scholarly discussion and devotion are never far apart with Fee. Discussing Jesus’ teaching about titles, he turns to his own recognition of what being called Doctor Fee instead of Gordon and how we cease being brothers and sisters when we invoke titles. Above all, we witness his devotion to Christ. He writes:
“I suggest to you that the church could be effective once again in the world. This is the passion that infuses these lectures. If I could somehow communicate, inculcate, and instill one passion into our Christian lives in the present age, it would be to stop being in step with our own age, and to live fully as eschatological people. I’m not here with you merely as an academic exercise but with a desire to recapture the theology of the early church, the eschatological hope of the Spirit given already in Jesus and his kingdom that set the church ablaze. Jesus’ coming set the future in motion. The coming age has dawned. With the early Christians, may we await the consummation of his second coming as active participants in that future even now” (pp. 36-37).
This is a wonderful posthumous gift to the church from Gordon D. Fee. While treating the writings of the New Testament individually, he also sees the whole as part of God’s story. Read this work to know the story and better tell the story. Finally, Fee opens this work by saying, “the proper aim of all true theology is doxology.” Do not be surprised if, in your reading, you have to stop and worship.
_______________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Gordon D. Fee was one of the outstanding New Testament scholars of my generation. He was a Pentecostal who taught at evangelical seminaries. His God’s Empowering Presence was probably one of the best books on the Holy Spirit I’ve read. He wrote academic commentaries and book on Paul. And he contributed to wider understanding of the Bible (with Douglas Stuart) with his How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth and How to Read the Bible Book By Book. I gave the former book to many of the students I worked with. One thing he never did was publish a book on New Testament theology.
However, he gave lectures to students on the topic. One series was recorded and transcribed. From these, his daughter, theologian Cherith Fee Nordling set out to edit these and turn them in the book. She describes the process in a moving Preface, set in the context of her father’s advancing Alzheimer’s illness and death.
The first lecture lays out Fee’s understanding of the nature and message of New Testament theology. He notes that the New Testament writings do not expound theology systematically. Rather, he says, “We must never forget that the writings of the New Testament are ad hoc documents, written in each and every case to speak to a specific need. Thus, rather than careful, systematic presentations of theology (such as in a book or a lecture), the earliest Christian theology is worked out in the marketplace, as it were.” With that in mind, Fee sees the New Testament concerned with God, people and redemption, captured in the idea of the presence of the kingdom. He works with the following definition of New Testament theology, which he unpacks in the book:
“Through the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord, our gracious and loving God has effected eschatological salvation for his new covenant people, the church, who now, as they await Christ’s coming, live the life of the future by the power of the Spirit” (p. 13).
Then the following lectures unpack this definition. Firstly, lectures two, three, and four focus on the kingdom of God, its presence in Christ and how its fulfillment is anticipated in what already is seen in the works of Christ and in the life of the people of God. Secondly, lectures five through nine address salvation in the person of Christ, in the writings of Paul, John, and the other New Testament writers. Thirdly, lectures ten through twelve center on Jesus the Savior. Beginning with the gospels he considers Jesus as Messiah, Son of Man, and suffering servant. Then he explores the contribution of Paul, John, and Hebrews to our Christology.
Fourthly, lectures thirteen to fifteen approach the New Testament from the perspective of the people of God, following the same pattern of the gospels, Paul, and John. Finally, lecture sixteen addresses the continuity and discontinuity between Old and New Testaments and the consummation of all things. The book concludes with a benediction focusing on the Trinitarian formulation of 2 Corinthians 13:14 and emphasizing the personal nature of the Holy Spirit.
There are several things I appreciate about this work. First are the prayers that appear throughout, at the beginning of each set of three lectures. In addition, unlike some New Testament theologies that spend much time in technical discussions, referencing other scholars, this is Fee with his Bible, sketching out the major themes of the New Testament. Scholarly discussion and devotion are never far apart with Fee. Discussing Jesus’ teaching about titles, he turns to his own recognition of what being called Doctor Fee instead of Gordon and how we cease being brothers and sisters when we invoke titles. Above all, we witness his devotion to Christ. He writes:
“I suggest to you that the church could be effective once again in the world. This is the passion that infuses these lectures. If I could somehow communicate, inculcate, and instill one passion into our Christian lives in the present age, it would be to stop being in step with our own age, and to live fully as eschatological people. I’m not here with you merely as an academic exercise but with a desire to recapture the theology of the early church, the eschatological hope of the Spirit given already in Jesus and his kingdom that set the church ablaze. Jesus’ coming set the future in motion. The coming age has dawned. With the early Christians, may we await the consummation of his second coming as active participants in that future even now” (pp. 36-37).
This is a wonderful posthumous gift to the church from Gordon D. Fee. While treating the writings of the New Testament individually, he also sees the whole as part of God’s story. Read this work to know the story and better tell the story. Finally, Fee opens this work by saying, “the proper aim of all true theology is doxology.” Do not be surprised if, in your reading, you have to stop and worship.
_______________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
May 17, 2026
3/4 the way through this book I was thinking that this is a solid book for those without a deep background in reading New Testament theology. It would make a great textbook for an undergraduate level class. And I would have rated it 3 stars. However, the last section on ecclesiology and ethics lifts it to a higher level. This is very good book, worth buying for Fee's integration of God's purposes, the Bible and the Christian life. He places the emphasis in exactly the right place: salvation through Jesus Christ, and a life shaped by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews