A Reader’s Guide to A. B. Simpson

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 TIMOTHY 2:15

Simpson is easy to read and easy to obtain. He wrote for ordinary congregations rather than for scholars, his sentences are short, and his illustrations are plain. Everything he published is now in the public domain and a great deal of it is freely available online. The difficulty is the opposite of the one Edwards presents. Simpson wrote a great deal, quickly, often for a weekly deadline, and the quality is uneven. Some volumes repeat one another. The guide below is arranged to save the reader time.

Begin here

The Fourfold Gospel. Short, and the best single entry point. The whole framework in a few dozen pages. The Self Life and the Christ Life. His most searching practical book, and the basis of chapter six of this volume. If a reader wants to be uncomfortable in a useful way, this is the one. Days of Heaven Upon Earth. A daily devotional, still in print after more than a century. The gentlest introduction to him and a good gift.

On the deeper life

Wholly Sanctified. A small book on 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Clear, warm and practical. The Land of Promise. His exposition of the Canaan typology treated in chapter eight. A Larger Christian Life. On enlargement of faith, service and expectation. The Christ Life. Brief essays on union with Christ.

On the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit, or Power from on High, in two volumes, tracing the Spirit’s work through the Old and New Testaments respectively. Long, but the fullest statement of the teaching in chapters nine and ten. When the Comforter Came. Thirty-one short readings; much more accessible.

On prayer and Scripture

The Life of Prayer. Short and practical. Christ in the Bible. His commentary on the whole Scripture, book by book, in many volumes, asking of each where Christ is found. Not to be read through; to be consulted alongside whatever you are studying. The Names of Jesus. A study of the titles of Christ.

Approach with care

The Gospel of Healing (1885). The fullest statement of the teaching treated in chapter four of this book, and the volume that requires the cautions set out there. Simpson’s own practice of setting aside medical means went beyond what Scripture teaches, and readers should not follow him in it. Read it alongside 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 and 2 Timothy 4:20.

The hymns

Simpson wrote more than a hundred, usually to be sung by his own congregation within days of being written. Himself is the essential one and states his whole theology; Jesus Only and Yesterday, Today, Forever are also widely known. They are worth reading as compressed teaching, not merely as devotional verse.

About Simpson

A. W. Tozer’s Wingspread (1943) is the best-known life, written by the Alliance’s most famous son. It is short, admiring, beautifully written, and not a critical biography. A. E. Thompson’s The Life of A. B. Simpson (1920) is the official account, published the year after his death, and valuable for its proximity to the events. Charles Nienkirchen’s A. B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement is the standard scholarly treatment of the tongues controversy discussed in chapter ten, and is more critical than the devotional lives. Read more than one. The older biographies are written by people who loved him, and it shows in what they leave out.

Three counsels for reading him

Read him with the Bible open. Simpson claimed no authority of his own, and his method was to argue from texts. Check them. Read him for the burden rather than the system. Where he presses a framework beyond what Scripture states — in the healing teaching, in the sanctification crisis, in the expectation of an imminent completion of the missionary task — take the pastoral concern and leave the scaffolding.

And read him slowly. His books are short and can be finished in an evening, which is precisely the danger. A chapter a week, acted on, will do more than the whole shelf admired.

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:21