The Key Teachings of E. M. Bounds

This is not a book by E. M. Bounds. It is a companion to him — an independent work of exposition and appreciation, written by Ochorus, that gathers the heart of his teaching into thirteen short chapters for the ordinary reader, with a chapter on his life, a conclusion and a guide to his books.

Bounds wrote about one subject, and he wrote about it as a man who did it every morning before the town was awake. His conviction was that God does His work through people who pray, and that no organisation, eloquence or money can stand in for them. This volume follows that single thread through its many strands — the preacher’s closet, faith and the Word, importunity and the early hour, holiness, trouble, revival and missions, the praying men of Scripture and history, and the intercession of Christ Himself — and it says plainly where his intensity overreaches, where his generalisations belong to his own age, and how much of what we read was shaped by the friends who edited his manuscripts after his death.

Bounds’s own writings are in the public domain and freely available, and every chapter here names them so the reader can go to the source; seven of his books on prayer are in the Ochorus library. This companion is offered only to open the door. It quotes Scripture from the Authorised (King James) Version, and it makes no claim to stand in for the man’s own urgent, repetitive and searching pages.