This book is exceptionally good!

The first half is a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit, while the second half is primarily a systematic theology of the Holy Spirit, but it also wades a little bit into historical theology and philosophical theology.

Kostenberger wrote the first portion. He's honest with difficulties of the text; he's very readable; he's informed about his sources; and he's surprisingly insightful for how brief the chapters are designed to be. There's more information for the NT than the OT, but that's not surprising; he's primarily a NT scholar, and the NT has a fuller revelation about the Holy Spirit than the OT. One last note: the tables throughout the chapters are very much appreciated for the sake of summary and memory. Altogether, I think any church member could read his portion of the book and truly enjoy learning about the Holy Spirit. Pastors and seminary students should love it.

Allison wrote the second portion, which felt longer than the first, and it seemed to have more interaction with secondary sources. That being said, the footnotes are amazing resources for further research and learning. There were surprising moments of humor in Allison's writing, which was appreciated. He also had a number of tables and diagrams that were very helpful. At times, although his logic was very sound and he was well within historic orthodoxy, I thought his supporting exegesis was thin or questionable, but that is a gripe of mine with systematic theology in general. Altogether, I think church members would have more difficulty reading this portion of the book than the first, especially the chapters about Trinitarian ontology and relations, but that's true of systematic theology in general. Pastors and seminary students should find this portion to be a treasure trove of information.

In the end, I think this is the best single-volume treatment of the Holy Spirit. I plan on requiring it for my pneumatology courses. Readers should also consider buying The Holy Spirit by Ferguson and He Who Gives Life by Cole. B&H has done an outstanding job with this volume, and I'm excited for the rest of the volumes in this series.

Note: this was sent to me by B&H for an honest review, and an honest review it was. Buy this book and read it!