The Work
The Pursuit of God was first published in 1948 by Christian Publications (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), the publishing arm of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. The book is approximately 25,000 words - brief by theological standards - organized into ten chapters plus a preface and a prayer. According to Tozer's own account, he wrote the entire manuscript in a single overnight session on a train from Chicago to McAllen, Texas, arriving at his destination with the completed work.
The book has never been out of print. It has been published in numerous editions and translations, and Tozer placed it in the public domain during his lifetime, refusing royalties and allowing free distribution. It has sold millions of copies and is consistently ranked among the most influential devotional works of the twentieth century. A.W. Tozer's literary executor, James L. Snyder, produced an annotated edition in 2013.
Biblical Engagement
The book opens with an epigraph from Psalm 42:1-2 (KJV): 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?' This text governs the entire work: Tozer's central argument is that the human soul was created for direct communion with God and that modern Christianity - with its emphasis on doctrine, programs, and external activity - has lost touch with this deepest hunger.
Matthew 5:8 ('Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God') provides the theological foundation for Chapter 3, 'Removing the Veil.' Tozer argues that there is a 'veil' of self-will, self-interest, and self-reliance between the human soul and God - drawing on the imagery of the temple veil (Exodus 26:31-33) that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. The tearing of this veil at Christ's death (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38) made direct access to God possible, but Tozer contends that most Christians live as if the veil were still intact.
Philippians 3:10 ('That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings') is the key text for Tozer's distinction between knowing about God and knowing God. This distinction - between propositional knowledge and experiential knowledge, between theology and encounter - is the book's most persistent theme.
John 17:3 ('And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent') provides the Christological grounding. Tozer insists that eternal life is not merely a future reward but a present reality - the experience of knowing God - and that the church has reduced it to a doctrinal proposition.
The Psalms are Tozer's constant companions throughout. Psalm 63:1 ('O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land'), Psalm 27:4 ('One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life'), and Psalm 84:2 ('My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God') all contribute to the work's language of spiritual longing.
Chapter 7, 'The Gaze of the Soul,' develops a theology of contemplation drawing on Hebrews 12:2 ('Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith') and 2 Corinthians 3:18 ('But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory'). Tozer argues that spiritual transformation happens not through effort but through sustained attention to God - a 'gaze' that gradually transforms the gazer.
Chapter 9, 'Meekness and Rest,' meditates on Matthew 11:28-30 ('Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls'). Tozer reads this as an invitation to cease striving and rest in God's presence - the antidote to the activism and anxiety that he sees as the besetting sins of American evangelicalism.
Author & Context
Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963) was born into a farming family in La Jose, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Akron, Ohio. He had no formal theological education - he never attended college or seminary. He was converted at age seventeen after hearing a street preacher and was largely self-taught, reading voraciously in the church fathers, the medieval mystics, and the Puritan divines. He was ordained in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1920 and served as pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago from 1928 to 1959 - a tenure of thirty-one years.
Tozer was an anomaly in mid-twentieth-century American evangelicalism. While his contemporaries were building mass organizations (Billy Graham), developing systematic apologetics (Carl Henry), and engaging in culture wars, Tozer was reading Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. He brought the contemplative tradition of Catholic and Orthodox mysticism into the heart of Protestant evangelicalism - a remarkable feat given the deep suspicion with which many evangelicals regarded mysticism.
His personal life was austere. He lived simply, refused to own a car, gave away most of his income, and spent long hours in solitary prayer (often lying face down on the floor of his study). His preaching was passionate, direct, and uncomfortable - he was known for denouncing the spiritual complacency of the evangelical establishment. He served as editor of the Alliance Weekly (later Alliance Life) from 1950 until his death and used this platform to challenge what he saw as the superficiality of American Christianity.
The context of The Pursuit of God was the post-World War II evangelical boom. The National Association of Evangelicals had been founded in 1942, Billy Graham's crusades were drawing millions, and the evangelical movement was experiencing unprecedented growth and cultural influence. Tozer saw both the opportunity and the danger: growth without depth, activity without intimacy, doctrine without devotion. The book was his diagnosis and his prescription.
Structure and Argument
The book moves from diagnosis (the problem of spiritual distance) through theology (the nature of God and the human soul) to practice (how to cultivate the presence of God).
Chapter 1, 'Following Hard After God,' establishes the thesis: the human soul was made for God and can find rest only in him (echoing Augustine's 'restless heart'). Chapters 2-3, 'The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing' and 'Removing the Veil,' address the obstacles: self-possession and self-will. Tozer argues that we must give up everything - not just sinful things but good things held too tightly - to find God. This echoes the theology of detachment in Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross.
Chapters 4-6, 'Apprehending God,' 'The Universal Presence,' and 'The Speaking Voice,' develop Tozer's theology of divine presence. God is everywhere present (Psalm 139:7-10), always speaking (Hebrews 1:1-2), and always accessible. The problem is not God's absence but our inattention.
Chapters 7-10 address the practical response: the 'gaze of the soul' (sustained contemplative attention), 'restoring the Creator-creature relation' (proper worship), 'meekness and rest' (the cessation of striving), and 'the sacrament of living' (finding God in ordinary life). The final chapter argues that all of life - eating, working, sleeping - can become a form of worship if undertaken with conscious awareness of God's presence.
Key Passages
The book's most famous passage opens Chapter 1: 'In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct "interpretations" of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.'
From Chapter 3: 'We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford, or a Brainerd.'
From Chapter 7: 'Believing, then, is directing the heart's attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives.' This passage distills the book's practical theology into a single sentence.
Critical Reception
The book was immediately popular within the Christian and Missionary Alliance and gradually gained a wider evangelical audience. By the 1960s and 1970s, it was being read across denominational lines - by Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, and even some Catholics. Leonard Ravenhill's endorsement and the book's inclusion in the 'Christian classics' lists of publishers like Moody Press extended its reach.
Theological responses have been largely positive within evangelical circles, though some Reformed critics have questioned Tozer's mystical language and his apparent privileging of experience over doctrine. Others have noted that Tozer's reading of the mystics was selective - he embraced their language of divine encounter while rejecting the Catholic sacramental and ecclesial frameworks within which that language was developed. Whether this selective appropriation is creative synthesis or theological cherry-picking remains debated.
The book has been criticized from a scholarly perspective for its lack of systematic rigor and its tendency toward rhetorical generalization. Tozer does not engage with academic theology, historical criticism, or philosophical argumentation. But defenders argue that this is precisely the point: the book is addressed not to the intellect but to the heart, and its effectiveness as a devotional work - its capacity to awaken spiritual hunger - is its own justification.
Theological Significance
The book's primary theological contribution is its recovery of the contemplative tradition for Protestant evangelicalism. Tozer demonstrated that the mystical language of direct encounter with God - the language of the Psalms, of Paul's letters, of Augustine, of the medieval mystics - was not a Catholic or Orthodox peculiarity but the native language of biblical faith. His insistence that 'knowing God' meant something more than intellectual assent to correct doctrine challenged the propositional emphasis of mid-century evangelicalism and anticipated the later 'spiritual formation' and 'contemplative prayer' movements.
The book's theology of divine presence - the conviction that God is always present, always speaking, always accessible - draws on the omnipresence tradition (Psalm 139, Jeremiah 23:24, Acts 17:28) but gives it a practical, devotional application. Tozer's argument is not that we need to find God (he is already here) but that we need to become aware of a Presence that we habitually ignore.
Legacy
The book has influenced multiple streams of Christian spirituality. It helped lay the groundwork for the evangelical contemplative movement associated with Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline (1978) and Dallas Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines (1988). It influenced the charismatic renewal's emphasis on experiential encounter with God. It has been embraced by the 'new monasticism' movement and by figures like John Piper, who has written appreciatively about Tozer's influence on his own spirituality.
Tozer's decision to place the book in the public domain - a rare act of generosity in the publishing world - means that it has been freely distributed in print and digital formats for decades, reaching readers who might never purchase a theological work. This accessibility, combined with its brevity and directness, has made it one of the most widely circulated devotional texts in the world.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Psalm 42:1-2 (the epigraph), Psalm 63 (thirsting for God), Psalm 27:4 (the one thing desired), Matthew 5:8 (the pure in heart), Matthew 11:28-30 (rest for the weary), Philippians 3:7-14 (knowing Christ), John 17:3 (eternal life as knowing God), 2 Corinthians 3:18 (transformation through beholding), and Hebrews 12:1-2 (looking unto Jesus).
Further Reading
- Lyle Dorsett, A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A.W. Tozer (2008) - the best biography, drawing on extensive archival research. - James L. Snyder, In Pursuit of God: The Life of A.W. Tozer (1991) - an earlier biography by Tozer's literary executor. - A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (1961) - Tozer's companion volume on the attributes of God, which complements The Pursuit of God by providing the theological content that the earlier work assumes.