Who Was Arthur W. Pink? The Bible Teacher Known After His Death
Arthur Walkden Pink was an English Bible teacher and writer who lived from 1886 to 1952. He was converted out of the occult as a young man, served as a pastor in the United States and Australia, and spent the last thirty years of his life writing a small monthly magazine, Studies in the Scriptures, for a small circle of readers. When he died on the Scottish island of Lewis, hardly anyone outside that circle knew his name. Within a few years his writings were being reprinted, and he became one of the most widely read evangelical authors of the twentieth century, best known for The Sovereignty of God and The Attributes of God.
Here's a look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to read first.
From Theosophy to Christ
Pink was born in Nottingham, England, on April 1, 1886. His parents were devout Christians, but as a young man he turned away and joined the Theosophical Society, a movement that mixed Eastern religion with spiritualism. He was a gifted speaker, and he took its teaching seriously.
In 1908, at about twenty-two, he was converted to Christ and left Theosophy behind. Accounts of his life say his father had kept praying for him and pressing Scripture on him. Pink wanted to preach at once. In 1910 he went to America to study at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, but he stayed only a short time, eager to get to work.
A pastor in America
Pink's first church was in Silverton, a mining town high in the mountains of Colorado. From there he moved to small churches in Kentucky, and in 1917 to Northside Baptist Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In 1916 he married Vera E. Russell, who shared his work for the rest of his life.
These were the years when he wrote the four books in TheWay Library. The Divine Inspiration of the Bible came out in 1917, The Sovereignty of God and The Redeemer's Return in 1918, and Why Four Gospels? in 1921. They show a young teacher who already had his main convictions: the Bible is the very Word of God, and God is God.
To say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God.
The Sovereignty of God, Chapter I
Christianity is the religion of a Book.
The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, Introduction
Studies in the Scriptures
After leaving Spartanburg, Pink traveled as a Bible teacher. In January 1922 he published the first issue of Studies in the Scriptures, a monthly magazine of Bible studies, nearly all written by himself. He kept it going for the rest of his life. Many of his best-known books, on Genesis, Exodus, Hebrews, the life of David, the attributes of God and the doctrines of salvation, first appeared there in monthly installments.
In 1925 the Pinks sailed to Australia, where he preached in Sydney and pastored two small Baptist congregations until 1928. He then returned to Britain and spent some years moving between England and America, preaching where he was invited, but he often found himself at odds with the churches he visited. In 1934 he settled back in England for good.
Stornoway
In 1940 Arthur and Vera Pink moved to Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. He spent his last twelve years there almost entirely alone with his books and his magazine. He didn't join a local church and seldom preached. He wrote, answered letters from readers around the world, and prayed. He died on July 15, 1952, at sixty-six. The last issues of his magazine came out after his death, through the end of 1953.
What he taught
Pink was a Calvinist, and the center of his teaching was the sovereignty of God: God rules over everything, saves whom He chooses, and does all things for His own glory. He believed the churches of his day had shrunk God down to a helper who waits on human choices, and he set out to restore a sense of His majesty:
How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom!
The Sovereignty of God, Chapter I
For Pink this wasn't cold doctrine. He found it the deepest comfort a believer can have:
To bow before the sovereign will of God is one of the great secrets of peace and happiness.
The Sovereignty of God, Chapter XII
He also pressed hard on holiness. He warned again and again that a faith which doesn't change the life isn't saving faith, and he called Christians to obey Scripture and examine themselves.
His views grew over the years. In his early books he followed the dispensational teaching on prophecy common among American fundamentalists, as you can see in The Redeemer's Return. Later he moved away from it toward the older Reformed and Puritan way of reading the Bible. Some of his strongest early statements, especially in the first editions of The Sovereignty of God, were softened in later printings.
Known after his death
During his life Pink's books sold little, and his magazine had only a small list of subscribers. After he died, publishers took up his work. The Banner of Truth Trust brought out a revised edition of The Sovereignty of God in 1961, and American publishers reprinted many of his books from Studies in the Scriptures. By the end of the century they had sold in the hundreds of thousands, and many pastors credited him with first showing them the greatness of God.
Why he's still read
Pink is still read because he takes God seriously and sends readers back to the Bible for everything. His style is direct and forceful, and he doesn't soften hard truths. Readers who find him too severe in places still find him bracing. He makes you ask whether your God is the God of Scripture.
Where to start
TheWay Library has four of his books, all free to read. Start with The Sovereignty of God if you want the book he's known for. For something shorter and easier, try Why Four Gospels?, his study of how each Gospel shows a different side of Christ, or The Divine Inspiration of the Bible. His early book on the second coming is The Redeemer's Return.
Our guide to Arthur W. Pink's books describes all four, and our collection of Arthur W. Pink quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find his books on the Arthur W. Pink author page.