The beginning of a new series of commentaries specifically 'to instruct the head and warm the heart'. Burridge achieves both, though the first predominates and the reader will have to contribute something to achieve the second. All the coals are there - nuggets of high quality, scattered everywhere and all the more interesting because they are not always related to each another, in a style that is lively, attractive and imaginative. To say that what is missing is the spark seems unfair, but true in the sense that we are expected to work out the conditions in which it can happen and that enables the the fourth gospel) to speak in a different way to each reader.