The Key Teachings of A. W. Tozer

This is a companion to A. W. Tozer, not a book by him. Written by Ochorus, it sets out in fifteen short chapters the teaching for which Tozer is chiefly remembered — the soul’s thirst for God, the majesty and holiness of the God it thirsts for, worship as the purpose of our making, faith as the steady gaze of the heart upon Christ, the cross that ends the old life, and a Spirit-filled walk in which the whole of life becomes a sacrament. It adds a chapter on his life, a conclusion, and a guide to his books.

It is important to be clear about what this book is and is not. It is an independent work of exposition, summary and appreciation. It is not published by, affiliated with, or endorsed by any organisation that holds rights in the writings of A. W. Tozer. All descriptions of his teaching are the present author’s own summaries; his books and spoken ministry are named only for the reader’s further study, and readers are warmly encouraged to obtain those works from their rightful publishers. Nothing of Tozer’s own text is reproduced here — only Scripture, quoted from the Authorised (King James) Version, and Ochorus’s account of what he taught.

Tozer spent his life insisting that a man may know a great deal about God and not know God at all. The right use of this little book, then, is not to learn more about Tozer, nor even more about God, but to go and seek the Lord he sought, with the Bible open and the door shut.