Engaging with the Holy Spirit: Real Questions, Practical Answers

Despite the growth of the charismatic movement and Pentecostal churches, people still have questionsÑand even troubling concernsÑabout the person and work of the Holy Spirit. These real questions are the burden of this book, which seeks to sequentially address from throughout Scripture six crucial questions that affect a personÕs relationship to the Spirit:

• What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?
• How does a person resist him?
• Ought we to pray to the Spirit?
• How do we quench the Spirit?
• How do we grieve the Spirit? and
• How does he fill us?

Each chapter is devoted to one question and challenges readers about their relationship with the Spirit and about Christian living in general. Readers are also given key elements for thinking theologically and implications for their belief and behavior. ItÕs a brief, reader-friendly book full of solid, reassuring answers.

ÒI cannot imagine that there are many pastors who have not heard each of the six questions that Graham Cole raises. Here are serious, careful, practical, theologically alert answers. This book deserves the widest circulation.Ó
D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

ÒPneumatology has been sadly neglected in recent evangelical theology, and when it has been touched upon, it has trended toward either the speculative or the sensational. But here is a book on the Holy Spirit that is practical, relevant, balanced, and useful in the lives of GodÕs people everywhere. This book provides important grounding for a fuller theology of the Holy Spirit, and I commend it to all believers who are serious about the Christian life.Ó
Timothy George, Dean, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University; Senior Editor, Christianity Today

ÒDrawing from the well of his extensive and rigorous study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Graham Cole gives refreshingly clear answers to six crucial questions that earnest Christians invariably ask. The answers are sure to grace the church, because what Christians believe about the third Person of the Trinity will determine how they live. This is an important, accessible, life-giving book.Ó
R. Kent Hughes, Senior Pastor Emeritus, College Church, Wheaton, Illinois

ÒWhen churches wrestle with division over contradictory views related to the work of the Holy Spirit, this book will provide lucid and succinct guidance. When individuals fear they have grieved the Holy Spirit, Dr. ColeÕs teaching will provide clarity and encouragement. When church leaders long for their congregations to know the filling of the Spirit of God, they will find wisdom in this book. I recommend it highly.Ó
Greg Waybright, Former President, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; Senior Pastor, Lake Avenue Church, Pasadena, California