Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Summer Reading

The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer is a book that I have known about and wanted to read for many years. Last year I found a copy at the Arc Thrift store for $1.99, so I bought it. Sadly, it sat on my bookshelf, lonely and unread until this summer. As I was preparing to go to Central Asia I wanted to take a book that would be easy to read and yet be spiritually nourishing. As I skimmed the chapters in this book I realized they are small, to the point and extremely powerful, so I took it with me.

What an encouraging book it has been for me right now!

The first sentence in the preface was so stunning and powerful that I thought, "This is going to be amazing!" Tozer proclaims:
  • True religion confronts earth with heaven and brings eternity to bear upon time.
It only gets better from there!
  • The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.
  • It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate.
Yes, Tozer, I agree. Thank you for stating it so plainly.

And that is just the Preface.

It is my goal to take one chapter at a time and give you a few of my favorite quotes. As I have read it my awe and fear of God has been renewed. He is Holy and if we are to be holy we must first know the Holy One in all of His attributes.

Go buy it. It is worth every penny.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love Tozer. Sadly all my Tozer books are still in France. Go figure. I should go to the library...I'm not sure I have the self-control to not notate all over every page though. Such rich and encouraging thoughts that man had. I'm so gald he shared them on paper.

Unknown said...

Hahaha... that's exactly why I cannot get books from the library, cause I DID mark on up one time and about half way through I realized what I did!!! I think I ended up buying one and explaining to the librarian what I had done. It was funny. :-P

I am so glad he put it on paper, too, it is so refreshing right now!

Augustinian Successor said...

"He is Holy and if we are to be holy we must first know the Holy One in all of His attributes."

Attribute(s) ... has surely gotta be one of my favourite theological buzzwords.

Attribute and attributesss ...