A Reader’s Guide to E. M. Bounds

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

Bounds is easy to find and easy to read. He wrote in short chapters, in plain if rhetorical English, and everything he wrote is now in the public domain. The difficulty is not quantity but repetition. His books circle the same themes, and whole paragraphs reappear from one to another. The guide below is arranged to help the reader choose.

Begin here

Power Through Prayer. The book by which most readers know him, first published in 1907 as Preacher and Prayer. Twenty short chapters, each opening with a quotation from an earlier man of prayer, pressing one argument: that the preacher’s power is made in the closet. Written for ministers, searching for everyone. The basis of chapters three and four of this volume. In the Ochorus library.

Prayer and Praying Men. The gentlest way in: a gallery of biblical intercessors from Abraham to Paul, published in 1921. It opens with Homer Hodge’s introduction, one of the few first-hand portraits of Bounds that we have. In the Ochorus library.

The teaching on prayer

The Necessity of Prayer. His most orderly book, setting prayer beside faith, trust, desire, fervency, importunity, obedience, vigilance and the Word of God. The source of much of chapters five, six, seven and nine of this volume. In the Ochorus library.

Purpose in Prayer. Published in 1920, and the most quotable and least systematic of his books. It includes the chapters Prayer Is a Trade to Be Learned, Prayerless Praying and Revivals Are Born in Prayer, alongside many stories gathered from others. In the Ochorus library.

The Essentials of Prayer. Prayer joined to humility, devotion, praise, trouble, compassion and missions. The two chapters on prayer and trouble are among the most tender he wrote. In the Ochorus library.

The Reality of Prayer. The best of his books on Christ as the teacher, example and great high priest of prayer, with chapters on John 17, Gethsemane and the Holy Spirit’s help. The basis of chapter fourteen of this volume. In the Ochorus library.

The Possibilities of Prayer. His boldest case for what God does in answer to prayer, full of promises and stories. Read it for its expectancy, and with the cautions of chapter eleven of this volume. In the Ochorus library.

Other works

The Weapon of Prayer, the last of the prayer books to be published, did not appear until 1931 and is not yet in the Ochorus library. Hodge also published writings of Bounds on heaven and on Satan. Several publishers have gathered the prayer books into a single collected volume, which is convenient but makes the repetitions more obvious.

About Bounds

Much of what we know comes from his friends. Homer Hodge’s introduction to Prayer and Praying Men and Claudius Chilton’s foreword to The Necessity of Prayer are short, admiring and close to the man. Among modern studies, Lyle W. Dorsett’s E. M. Bounds: Man of Prayer (1991) combines a biographical essay with selections from his writings, and Darrel D. King has written a short popular life. The Ochorus author page carries a biography.

Approach with care

Read the stories with discernment. Many of the anecdotes in Purpose in Prayer and The Possibilities of Prayer were gathered from other preachers and from the religious press, and some may have been added by his editors. They illustrate his point; they are not all equally reliable.

Read the superlatives as a preacher’s rhetoric. When Bounds says prayer is the only thing, or that unanswered prayer is always our fault, he is shouting to wake the sleeping, not stating a measured doctrine. Chapters nine and eleven of this volume set out where he must be qualified.

Three counsels for reading him

Read him a little at a time. His chapters are short and dense, and his force is best taken in small doses. A chapter a day will do more than a book in a weekend.

Read him with the Bible open. He claimed no authority of his own. He wanted to send his readers to the promises of God. Check his texts, and let Scripture have the last word.

And read him on your knees. There is no point in reading Bounds without praying. He would have been the first to say that one hour of prayer is worth more than every book he wrote. Put the book down when it stirs you, and pray.

Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. LUKE 11:1