The Quotable Tozer is a topical collection of quotes by A.W. Tozer compiled by James L. Snyder. In his introduction, Snyder writes, "I have gone through all of his books and pulled quotes from them that I believe will help readers get to know him better and understand who he was. My purpose in putting it together was first for those who may not be acquainted with Tozer’s writings, to introduce the reader to them in small slices that they can absorb."
Is The Quotable Tozer a good introduction to Tozer? If I answer "no," it would only be so I could say "YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES."
Am I prone to gushing when it comes to Tozer? YES. You might pick up on that in every review I've ever written of his books.
What do I love about Tozer? I love his passion, his zeal for the Lord. I love his no-nonsense boldness. He was not one for compromise. He stood for the TRUTH no matter the cost. He loved the Word and believed it should be the sole authority in the life of the individual and the church.
No doubt I love Tozer. But that doesn't mean I agree with him 100% of the time. I don't. We both love God. We both love Scripture. We both hold the truth to be of the utmost importance. But we have slight differences of opinion about the sovereignty of God in election, aka the doctrines of grace. Reading Tozer, one gets the sense that he believed the "T", he just never quite got around to the "ULIP" before he died.
So much of what Tozer says is right. But not every single thing. I have learned to keep what is good, what is true, what is right, and to throw out what misses the mark.
So what are the topics explored in The Quotable Tozer:
- Ambitions
- Angels
- Anger
- Authority
- Believer
- Bible
- Christianity
- Church
- Commandments of Christ
- Devil
- Doctrine
- Enemy
- Entertainment
- Eternity
- Evil
- Faith
- Fellowship
- Glory
- Grace
- Holiness
- Holy Spirit
- Hymns
- Illumination
- Joy
- Judgment
- Knowledge
- Love
- Majesty
- Mercy
- Ministry
- Miracle
- Missions
- Money
- Mystery
- Obedience
- Pleasure
- Praise
- Prayer
- Promises
- Prophets
- Purity
- Redemption
- Rejoice
- Religion
- Remnant
- Repent/Repentance
- Resurrection
- Revival
- Sacrifice
- Salvation
- Self
- Soul
- Spiritual Gifts
- Spirituality
- Surrender
- Temptations
- Theology
- Traditions
- Unbelief
- Wickedness
- Worship
Reading The Quotable Tozer would give new readers a great exposure to who Tozer was and what he believed and taught. I can't imagine not wanting to read more of Tozer after finishing this one!
Quotes:
Authority
No man has the authority to divide the truth and preach only a part of it. To do so is to weaken it and render it without effect. The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1950Bible
We believe in the whole Bible, not bits and pieces. The whole Bible supports the idea of progressing toward spiritual perfection in our Christian lives. Spiritual perfection is what the apostle Paul longed for and spoke about. The Crucified Life
I would recommend that you go to some secondhand bookstore and buy a used King James Bible. You might have to put down a few dollars, but it will be the best investment you have ever made. I know the thees and thous are rather cumbersome, but one of the most beautiful things about these words is that they slow you down when you read. Probably there is no greater offense in all of Christendom than speed-reading the Bible. The Bible must be read slowly and meditatively, allowing the Spirit of God to open up our understanding. The Crucified Life
The five unanswered questions are: Where did we come from? How did we get here? What are we? Why are we here? and Where are we going? These questions cannot be answered except by going to the Bible for the answers. Man, in his ignorance, does not know and can never discover the answers by himself. A Disruptive Faith
I am so over arguing about which is the right translation. I think that has been manufactured by the enemy to draw our attention away from the priority we should be giving to the Word of God. Alive in the Spirit
I would suggest we discipline ourselves to read the Bible until it comes alive—until we can almost feel the breath of God breathing upon us. David felt this way, particularly when he wrote, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God” (Psalm 42:1). He knew what it was to pant after God. Experiencing the Presence of God
I solemnly vow before God Almighty that, every day of my life, I will take the Bible as the most serious thing and adjust my life to its teachings. God’s Power for Your Life
I like to keep in mind that everything in the Bible is for me, but not everything in the Bible is about me. I need to have a degree of spiritual discernment to find out what God is really saying to me today. I accept the entire Bible—every chapter, every verse, every word—as the Word of God. Still, some things in the Bible do not apply to me personally. As the Holy Spirit guides me through this host of promises, I come to those that are meant for me. Apart from the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit, this could be a maze of confusion. God’s Power for Your Life
If you do not have more than one verse to support what you read, do not teach it. Because if it is not found in more than one verse in the Bible, chances are it is not found there either, and what you think is a passage teaching a certain thing does not teach it at all. Living as a Christian
God is not the way we say He is, God is the way the Bible says He is. My Daily Pursuit
Let me give you a little motto: Before I can understand a Bible text, it takes an act of the Holy Spirit equal to the act that inspired the text in the first place. Mystery of the Holy Spirit
A real Christian uses his whole Bible. This will make some of you mad, but if you are living on your morning daily devotions taken out of a book somebody compiled, I warn you that is pabulum. Read the entire Bible. Read it all. I do not say these other things are harmful, I just say that if you have that and nothing else, then you are not matured in your Christian life. Read all of the Bible. Reclaiming Christianity
The threefold purpose of the Bible is to inform, to inspire faith, and to secure obedience. Whenever it is used for any other purpose it is used wrongly and may do actual injury. The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1952
Christianity
It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of sound doctrine in the life of a Christian. Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we would have right living. The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1960
When will Christians learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin, that to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self, that to follow the good way we must flee from evil? The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1963
Doctrine
Any doctrine not rooted in the character and nature of God is not a biblical doctrine; or we have not understood the doctrine correctly. Every doctrine begins in the heart of God and then flows into the heart of man, creating a godly atmosphere in that man. My Daily Pursuit
Any doctrine, any view of sin that allows it to be excused in any way is not biblical. The Wisdom of God
Faith
True faith requires that we believe everything God has said about himself, but also that we believe everything He has said about us. The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1958
Grace
Every day I need to make room for the Holy Spirit to speak to me in such a way that my life is a testimony of His grace. Alive in the Spirit
Until we come to that point of understanding what wretches we are, we will never understand the amazing grace of God. It takes a wretch like me to experience the amazing grace of God. Delighting in God
Grace does not mean that salvation is not a costly thing. It simply means that out of God’s goodness He gives grace to us who are unworthy of it. Voice of a Prophet
Holy Spirit
I do not want the world to define God for me. I do not even want religion to define God for me. I want the Holy Spirit to reveal God to me through the exceedingly great and precious promises He has given to me. God’s Power for Your Life
We must get on our knees before our open Bible and allow the Holy Spirit to break our hearts and create a passion for Christ as we’ve never had before. Preparing for Jesus’ Return
Love
To know Him is to love Him, and to know Him better is to love Him more. The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1954Mercy
There is nothing you can do to increase God’s mercy. The mercy of God is as big as God, and God fills all space and overflows into a vacuity, so that you cannot add anything to His grace and mercy. Delighting in God
Religion
I would never have anything to do with any book or any movement or any religion or any emphasis that does not begin with Christ, go out from Christ, and return to Christ again—the Christ of God, the Christ of the Bible, the Christ of Christian theology, the historic Christ of the Scriptures. Delighting in God
Repentance
Another lie is going around: There will be time after death to repent. You can live your life any which way you please. God understands that nobody is perfect, and after we die, we will have an opportunity in some purgatory somewhere to repent. The Scriptures, however, teach something altogether different. Let me repeat here that every lie of the enemy is designed to point us away from God’s truth and to damn our souls. God’s Power for Your Life
Revival
The Word of God is before us. We have only to read and do what is written there and revival is assured. It will come as naturally as the harvest comes after the plowing and the planting. The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1955
Salvation
I would not give a nickel for the Christian that has no proof of his salvation except he quotes a text. The text will lead you to the fountain, but if you plunge into the fountain and come up wet, I will know you are a Christian. And He Dwelt Among Us
Self
Who can make you anything less than God intended you to be except your own self and sin? Living as a Christian
Surrender
What costs you little or nothing is worth exactly that much. The challenge before us is simply this: What are we willing to pay, sacrifice, or surrender in order to advance in living the crucified life? The Crucified Life
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