JourneyOnline
Monarch Books, 2009
RRP $19.99
Reviewed by Bill Adams.
THE remarkable life of Aiden Wilson Tozer has been wonderfully presented in this lively and readable biography by James L Snyder.
I expected to be introduced to a calculated coverage of a dry and doctrinaire defender of biblical correctness but instead found Mr Snyder taking me into the world of a warm and deeply devotional human being with a keen sense of humour and an inexhaustible commitment to “The pursuit of God”, the title of his best known book.
Mr Tozer, as a preacher and a writer in the mid twentieth century, was known as a conservative evangelical (isn’t that a contradiction in terms?) and his influence has been wide in the United States and across the world.
He was not an academic in the strict meaning of the term but was very well educated in many areas through his wide reading, most of all through his constant and deep reading of the Bible, his major source book always.
I found it interesting that he loved the mystics and read most of them through Jewish and Christian history.
I think this explains his warmth and his inner depth more than anything else. He could be called a mystic himself.
Mr Snyder is a logical successor and the appropriate person to bring this record to us.
He has done it with imagination, with quotes and references that are helpful and with a selection of “Tozergrams” scattered throughout.
Most importantly, he has presented the ministry of this dedicated man in such a way that we are now challenged to reconsider our own priorities.
