The Early Tozer: A Word in Season
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
These are selected articles from Tozer’s pen, compiled by James L. Snyder. These short essays, Snyder reminds us, are not sermons but “the casual musings of a man in tune with not only the world around him, but with God.” Many of these essays were written in transit to numerous speaking engagements, when Tozer was alone with God and compelled to put his thoughts on paper. Here you will discover the wit and spiritual insight of an early Tozer who offers his readers a true “word in season.”
Better Together! Save more when you purchase The Early Tozer: A Word in Season as part of the A. W. Tozer Collection (57 Vols.).
Product Details
- Title: The Early Tozer: A Word in Season
- Author: A. W. Tozer
- Editor: James L. Snyder
- Publisher: WingSpread
- Publication Date: 1997
- Pages: 121
About A. W. Tozer
Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963) was born on a small farm in what is now Newburg, PA. His family moved to Akron, Ohio, when he was just a young boy. At the age of 17, Tozer heard a street preacher, responded to the calling of Christ, and began his lifelong pursuit of God. After becoming an active witness of Jesus as a lay preacher, he joined The Christian and Missionary Alliance and was soon serving as the pastor of West Virginia’s Alliance Church, in 1919. He transferred to the Southside Alliance Church in Chicago in 1928, and his ministry continued there for 31 years. During that time he preached on the Moody Bible Institute’s radio station. In the 1940s Tozer was invited to speak at Wheaton College, and seldom a year passed after World War II that he didn’t preach in the college’s Pierce Chapel. In 1950 he became the editor of The Alliance Life magazine and served in that capacity until his death.
Self-taught, with no formal Bible training, Tozer has been called a twentieth-century prophet within his own lifetime. Through years of diligent study and constant prayer, he sought the mind of God. A master craftsman in the use of the English language, he was able to write in a simple, cogent style the principles of truth he had learned. For Tozer, “there was no substitute for knowing God firsthand.” He wrote many of his books with one idea in mind—that his reader would achieve the heart’s true goal in God and maintain that relationship with Him.
Tozer moved to Toronto in 1959 and spent the final years of his life as the pastor of Avenue Road Church. He and his wife, Ada, lived a simple, non-materialistic lifestyle and let much of the royalties from his books go to those in need. The Tozers had seven children, six boys and one girl. James L. Snyder, said of Tozer that his “preaching as well as his writings were but extensions of his prayer life. He had the ability to make his listeners face themselves in the light of what God was saying to them.”
Top Highlights
“The best rule is: Go to God first about the meaning of any text. Then consult the teachers. They may have found a grain of wheat you had overlooked.” (Page 8)
“Bible Characters fall into four classes: those who are great but not good; those who are good but not great; those who are neither good nor great; and those who are both great and good.” (Page 1)
“In view of all these things, a thankless man must be a bad man if for no other reason than that he is thankless. Ingratitude is a major sin. The man of enlightened mind will always feel deeply humbled when he considers God’s goodness and his own insignificance. He is likely to be very modest about demanding anything further; he will be too conscious that he already enjoys far more than the circumstances warrant.” (Page 4)
“Lot’s wife looked back and was turned to salt; there is danger that we look back and be turned to acid.” (Page 16)
“If we can convince God that we are sold out to His high honor, the problem of unanswered prayer is solved. God will withhold nothing from that man who is determined to live to His glory alone.” (Page 19)