Brian G. Hedges | Pastor & Author
A. W. Pink on Love
"All religion is in effect love. Faith is thankful acceptance, and thankfulness is an expression of love. Repentance is love mourning. Yearning for holiness is love seeking. Obedience is love pleasing. Self-denial is the mortification of self-love. Sobriety is the curtailing of carnal love. If love is not activated and kept working, it will atrophy. The affections of man cannot be idle; if they do not go out to God, they leak out to worldly things. When our love for God decreases, the love of the world grows in our soul. Love's constraining influence keeps us from living to and for ourselves. . . how earnestly we should pray for the succoring, strengthening, and stimulating of our love! One of the Holy Spirit's ministries in us is to stir up our love to God." (A. W. Pink)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hi Brian
Pink is a disappointment to me. I used to think he was the ant's pants [or at least the bee's knees], but at times he was rather abrasive and unloving, I think.
On learning that he felt that there was no church worthy of him attending, and spent his last days as a Christian hermit, I'm wary of his material.
The quote in question seems sound enough, however.
I can understand your disillusionment with Pink. He was, without doubt, "a strange bird." But my take is slightly different than yours. Although I think he was terribly reclusive and sometimes abrasive, as you say, after reading his biography I walked away with a fresh perspective on how God can "hit straight with a crooked stick." Despite all of Pink's idiosyncrasies and faults, his writings have been used of the Lord to bring theology to a popular level for thousands of people over the past twenty or thirty years. He is certainly not my favorite author and I would thoroughly disagree with some of the hyper-calvinistic undertones in some of his writings. But several of his books have been a real blessing to me, including his letters and the biography by Iain Murray.
Good to hear from you David!
Post a Comment