R. A. Torrey
Reuben Archer Torrey was an American Congregational pastor, evangelist, and theologian who worked as a preacher, educator, and writer during his lifetime.
Born on January 28, 1856, in Hoboken, Torrey was educated at Yale University, Yale Divinity School, and Leipzig University, as well as at Wheaton College. This education across multiple institutions prepared him for overlapping vocations that included service as a Congregational pastor, work as an evangelist, teaching at the university level, and writing. He was a citizen of the United States and conducted his work in the English language.
Torrey aligned with Keswick theology, and this orientation connected his roles as preacher, theologian, and writer across the various dimensions of his career. He held the combined identities of pastor, educator, evangelist, and theologian throughout his active years, producing written work alongside his preaching and teaching. He died on October 26, 1928, in Asheville. His alignment with Keswick theology remained a consistent identifier across his activities as a writer, university teacher, and Congregational pastor.
Quotes by R. A. Torrey
R. A. Torrey's insights on:
The Spirit, when He prays through us, or helps us to meet the mighty “ougthness” of right praying, trims our praying down to the will of God...
There must be, in any complete revelation of God’s mind and will and character and being, things hard for the beginner to understand; and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.
Prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the prayer that soars upward most easily to God’s listening ears.
To have as one’s ever-present friend, and to be conscious that one has as his ever-present friend, the Holy Spirit and to surrender one’s life in all it’s departments entirely to His control – this is true Christian living.
God’s Word is pure and sure, in spite of the devil, in spite of your fear, in spite of everything.
The truly wise man is he who believes the Bible against the opinions of any man. If the Bible says one thing, and any body of men says another, the wise man will decide, “This book is the Word of him who cannot lie”.
Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all pray.
