Arthur T. Pierson Books: A Guide to All 15 and Where to Start

Bible Study Prayer Holy Spirit Missions Christian Life

Arthur T. Pierson (1837–1911) was a Presbyterian pastor, Bible teacher and missions leader who wrote more than fifty books. TheWay Library has fifteen of them, all free to read: his famous life of George Müller, short books on prayer and the Christian life, studies of the Holy Spirit, four books on the Bible, his lectures on preaching, and his history of the missionary century. For his life story, see who was Arthur T. Pierson.

This guide sorts them so you can find what you need.

Where to start

If you're new to Pierson, start with George Müller of Bristol. It's the authorized life of the man who cared for thousands of orphans by prayer alone, and it's the book Pierson is best known for. It takes about eleven hours to read.

If you'd like something shorter, read Lessons in the School of Prayer, about two hours.

After that, choose by what you want:

To pray: Lessons in the School of Prayer, then A Spiritual Clinique.
To study the Bible: Knowing the Scriptures.
For reasons to trust the Bible: Many Infallible Proofs or God's Living Oracles.
For victory over sin: Shall We Continue in Sin? and In Christ Jesus.
On the Holy Spirit: The Acts of the Holy Spirit.
For preachers: The Divine Art of Preaching.
For missions: The New Acts of the Apostles.

Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of Arthur T. Pierson quotes.

Biography

George Müller of Bristol

Pierson tells Müller's story from his careless youth in Germany and his new birth to his work in Bristol, where he housed thousands of orphans on Ashley Down without ever asking anyone but God for money. The middle chapters dwell on Müller's daily habits of reading the Word and praying, and the appendices give the texts that shaped him and the arguments he used in prayer. Our article who was George Müller gives the story in short.

God guides, not by a visible sign, but by swaying the judgment.
George Müller of Bristol, Following the Pillar of Cloud and Fire

Read George Müller of Bristol.

Prayer and the Christian life

Lessons in the School of Prayer

Pierson gathered everything Jesus said about prayer and found it formed one body of teaching. He arranges it as lessons, like rungs of a ladder: closet communion with God, then the matter, manner and spirit of prayer, then the higher secrets of praying in Christ's name. Read Lessons in the School of Prayer.

A Spiritual Clinique

Born from years of counseling at the Keswick Convention, this short book treats four chronic troubles of the soul as a doctor would: sin that won't be subdued, unanswered prayer, long spiritual darkness and habitual unbelief, which he finds at the root of the rest. Read A Spiritual Clinique.

The love of God quite as often withholds as grants.
A Spiritual Clinique, Unanswered Prayer

In Christ Jesus

A study of the two words "in Christ," which Pierson calls the key to the whole New Testament. He follows the phrase from Romans to Thessalonians and shows Christ as the sphere that surrounds the believer on every side. Read In Christ Jesus.

The Believer's Life

A short study of Ephesians 2 in three tenses: what we were, dead in sins; what we are, raised and seated with Christ; and what we will be in the ages to come. Read The Believer's Life.

Shall We Continue in Sin?

Addresses on Romans 6 to 8, given in Britain and Ireland in 1896. Pierson answers Paul's question by unfolding seven sides of the believer's union with Christ, from being reckoned dead with Him to the eternal union nothing can break. Read Shall We Continue in Sin?.

The Holy Spirit and revival

The Acts of the Holy Spirit

Pierson reads Acts as a fifth Gospel: in the Gospels Christ worked in the flesh, and in Acts He works by His Spirit through the church. Each chapter pairs two sides of the Spirit's work, such as His fullness and boldness, or His restraint and constraint in steering Paul toward Macedonia. Read The Acts of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit's Voice to the Churches

Five short addresses from the years of the Keswick Prayer Circle and the Welsh revival. They call for thanksgiving for answered prayer, warn against resisting the Spirit through doubtful indulgences, and report what Pierson learned in five weeks in Wales. Read The Spirit's Voice to the Churches.

How Christ Came to Church

This is mostly A. J. Gordon's book. Gordon, a Boston pastor, tells of a dream in which Christ visited his church one Sunday, and how it changed his view of worship. Pierson adds a life-story of his friend and a long section showing how the dream shaped Gordon's whole ministry. Read How Christ Came to Church.

The Bible

Knowing the Scriptures

Pierson's handbook of Bible study, published the year before he died. In fifty short chapters he moves from large features, like the Bible's unity and structure, to small ones, like grammar, key words and context, then to methods of study and to parables, types and dispensations. It's long, about ten hours, but you can read it a chapter at a time. Read Knowing the Scriptures.

Give the Word of God free course and it will be victor over all assault.
Knowing the Scriptures, Introduction

Many Infallible Proofs

A book on the evidences of Christianity, written after Pierson passed through doubt himself. He weighs fulfilled prophecy, miracles, the Bible's moral beauty and the person and teaching of Christ. Read Many Infallible Proofs.

God's Living Oracles

A later defense of the Bible as the central stronghold of the faith. It covers the Bible as literature, its harmony with science, prophecy, Christ as the heart of Scripture and the meaning of the blood in sacrifice. Read God's Living Oracles.

Stumbling Stones Removed from the Word of God

A short handbook on hard places and apparent contradictions in the Bible. Pierson sorts them into kinds, gives rules for handling them, and shows how they train patient, humble readers. Read Stumbling Stones Removed.

Preaching

The Divine Art of Preaching

Lectures Pierson gave to the students of Spurgeon's Pastors' College while he filled the Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit. He covers the preacher's books, themes and memory, kinds of sermons, the critics, snares in ministry and, above all, preaching in communion with the Holy Spirit. Read The Divine Art of Preaching.

Men must be drawn not to us, but to the cross, and to us only that they may through us be drawn to Christ.
The Divine Art of Preaching, The Preacher in His Pulpit

Missions

The New Acts of the Apostles

Pierson's Duff Missionary Lectures, given in Scotland. He tells the story of the hundred years of missions since William Carey as new chapters of Acts: new pentecosts, open doors, pioneers, converts and martyrs, and answers to prayer, with appeals to the church at home. Read The New Acts of the Apostles.

A note on these editions

George Müller of Bristol has been proofread. The other fourteen were restored from scans of the original printings and are still being proofread, so you'll meet a misread word here and there. The Divine Art of Preaching has the most damage: the large first letter of most chapters is missing.

Why read Pierson today

Pierson is orderly, warm and practical. He wants you to pray, to read your Bible with care, to walk in victory and to care about the world. Begin with George Müller of Bristol or Lessons in the School of Prayer, then follow your need. All fifteen books are on the Arthur T. Pierson author page.