Who Was Arthur T. Pierson? Bible Teacher, Missions Leader, Author

Biography Missions Bible Study Preaching

Arthur Tappan Pierson was an American Presbyterian pastor, Bible teacher and missions leader who lived from 1837 to 1911. He pastored churches in New York, Detroit and Philadelphia, filled Charles Spurgeon's pulpit in London after Spurgeon's death, and spoke at the Northfield and Keswick conferences. For more than twenty years he edited The Missionary Review of the World, and he helped stir a generation of college students to go overseas as missionaries. He wrote over fifty books, among them the authorized life of George Müller and a well-loved handbook of Bible study. He also served as a consulting editor of the first Scofield Reference Bible.

Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to start with.

Early years in New York

Pierson was born in New York City on March 6, 1837. His parents named him after Arthur Tappan, the merchant and anti-slavery leader. He professed faith in Christ at thirteen, at a Methodist revival meeting. He studied at Hamilton College in upstate New York, graduating in 1857, and then at Union Theological Seminary. In 1860 he married Sarah Frances Benedict. They had seven children, and all of them went on to serve the church as missionaries, pastors or lay workers.

A pastor who changed course

Pierson's first pastorates were in Binghamton and Waterford, New York. In 1869 he went to Fort Street Presbyterian Church in Detroit, a large and well-to-do congregation, and stayed thirteen years.

Those Detroit years turned his life around. In 1876 the church building burned. While it was being rebuilt, the congregation met in the city opera house, and many people who would never have entered the old church came in. Revival followed. Around the same time Pierson came to believe he had been proud, preaching to please the educated and the wealthy. He led the church to reach out to the city's poor, gave up pew rents, and chose to depend on God for his own support.

He then served briefly in Indianapolis and, from 1883, at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, a church known for its huge Sunday school and its outreach to working people.

Missions

Pierson's great cause was world missions. At a Bible conference D. L. Moody held in 1885 he called for a worldwide campaign to take the gospel to every nation. The next summer, at Moody's student conference at Northfield, his preaching helped move a hundred young men to pledge themselves as foreign missionaries. That pledge became the Student Volunteer Movement, which sent out thousands of missionaries over the next decades. Its watchword, "the evangelization of the world in this generation," came from Pierson.

From 1888 until his death he edited The Missionary Review of the World, the leading missions magazine of its day, which wasn't tied to any one denomination. He gathered the story of the missionary century in lectures he gave in Scotland, published as The New Acts of the Apostles. There he argued that the Holy Spirit was still writing the book of Acts on the mission field, and he named the danger he feared most at home:

The form of sound words without the spirit of faith and love in Christ Jesus, is dead orthodoxy.
The New Acts of the Apostles, The New Lesson of the Power

London, Keswick and George Müller

When Spurgeon fell ill in 1891, Pierson was asked to fill the pulpit of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. He stayed on after Spurgeon died in January 1892 and preached there into 1893. While in London he lectured week by week to the students of Spurgeon's Pastors' College. Those talks became The Divine Art of Preaching.

He became a regular speaker at the Keswick Convention in England, where believers gathered to seek a holier life. Books like A Spiritual Clinique grew out of his counseling there. He taught that victory over sin comes from union with Christ, not from a believer's own effort.

Pierson also knew George Müller of Bristol, who for decades had cared for thousands of orphans by prayer alone, never asking anyone but God for money. Müller was one of the men who changed Pierson's view of the Lord's return, and after Müller's death in 1898 Pierson wrote George Müller of Bristol, the authorized biography. It is still the standard life. Pierson drew lessons on prayer from Müller's habits, like this one:

We are to argue our case with God, not indeed to convince Him, but to convince ourselves.
George Müller of Bristol, The Word of God and Prayer

In 1896, at fifty-eight, Pierson was baptized by immersion as a believer by James Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon's brother. It was a costly step for a Presbyterian minister, and it strained his ties with his denomination, though he went on worshiping and working among Presbyterians.

What he taught

Pierson was above all a Bible teacher. He believed the Bible was the inspired Word of God, one book with one design, and he wrote several books defending it, including Many Infallible Proofs and God's Living Oracles. In Knowing the Scriptures he set out rules and methods for studying it. He opened that book with a simple conviction:

For God's written Word no substitute has ever been found.
Knowing the Scriptures, Introduction

He was equally a man of prayer. In Lessons in the School of Prayer he gathered every word Jesus spoke on prayer and arranged them as lessons, starting with the closet, the shut door and time alone with God:

The praying soul speaks to God, and hears God speak.
Lessons in the School of Prayer, Closet Communion with God

He also taught that the believer lives "in Christ," surrounded by Him on every side. His book In Christ Jesus traces that phrase through Paul's letters. And he looked for the personal return of the Lord.

Friends and last years

Pierson worked closely with many leaders of his day. He was a friend of Moody, of A. J. Gordon of Boston, whose book How Christ Came to Church he completed with a life-story after Gordon's death, and of C. I. Scofield, who asked him to serve as a consulting editor of the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909. During the Welsh revival of 1904 and 1905 he spent weeks in Wales, and he wrote about what he saw in The Spirit's Voice to the Churches.

In 1910 he set out to tour the missions of East Asia, but he fell ill and came home to Brooklyn. He died there on June 3, 1911, at seventy-four.

Why he's still read

Pierson is still read because he was clear, orderly and warm. He liked lists, outlines and short sentences you can remember. He wrote for ordinary Christians who wanted to pray better, read the Bible better and care about the world. And his life of Müller has encouraged more than a century of readers to trust God with their needs.

Where to start

TheWay Library has fifteen of his books, all free to read. Start with George Müller of Bristol, his best-known book and one of the great Christian biographies; our article on who was George Müller tells that story in short. For something brief, read Lessons in the School of Prayer. If you want to study the Bible for yourself, go to Knowing the Scriptures.

Our guide to Arthur T. Pierson's books explains how all of them fit together, and our collection of Arthur T. Pierson quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the Arthur T. Pierson author page.