Wingspread—A. B. Simpson: A Study in Spiritual Altitude

by A. W. Tozer

Publisher:

WingSpread

, 1943

Overview

With a sympathetic heart and an objective mental approach, Tozer, in this short biography, gives us a sketch of the life of Albert Benjamin Simpson. Tozer reminds us that we have received from A. B. Simpson’s life and teachings “such immeasurable benefits that we feel forever bound to thank the thoughtful God who gave him to the church.“ Simpson arose from inauspicious beginnings to prominence through Presbyterian pastorates when he resigned from his comfortable pulpit to launch a ministry aimed at reaching the world’s lost multitudes. That ministry blossomed into The Christian and Missionary Alliance, a denomination characterized by its Christ-centered teaching and missionary emphasis. Wingspread is a story of one of God’s chosen leaders that will captivate and challenge the reader.

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Product Details

• Title: Wingspread—A.B. Simpson: A Study in Spiritual Altitude
• Author: A. W. Tozer
• Publisher: WingSpread
• Publication Date: 1943
• Pages: 143

About A. W. Tozer

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963) was born on a small farm in what is now Newburg, PA. His family moved to Akron, Ohio, when he was just a young boy. At the age of 17, Tozer heard a street preacher, responded to the calling of Christ, and began his lifelong pursuit of God. After becoming an active witness of Jesus as a lay preacher, he joined The Christian and Missionary Alliance and was soon serving as the pastor of West Virginia’s Alliance Church, in 1919. He transferred to the Southside Alliance Church in Chicago in 1928, and his ministry continued there for 31 years. During that time he preached on the Moody Bible Institute’s radio station. In the 1940s Tozer was invited to speak at Wheaton College, and seldom a year passed after World War II that he didn’t preach in the college’s Pierce Chapel. In 1950 he became the editor of The Alliance Life magazine and served in that capacity until his death.

Self-taught, with no formal Bible training, Tozer has been called a twentieth-century prophet within his own lifetime. Through years of diligent study and constant prayer, he sought the mind of God. A master craftsman in the use of the English language, he was able to write in a simple, cogent style the principles of truth he had learned. For Tozer, “there was no substitute for knowing God firsthand.” He wrote many of his books with one idea in mind—that his reader would achieve the heart’s true goal in God and maintain that relationship with Him.

Tozer moved to Toronto in 1959 and spent the final years of his life as the pastor of Avenue Road Church. He and his wife, Ada, lived a simple, non-materialistic lifestyle and let much of the royalties from his books go to those in need. The Tozers had seven children, six boys and one girl. James L. Snyder, said of Tozer that his “preaching as well as his writings were but extensions of his prayer life. He had the ability to make his listeners face themselves in the light of what God was saying to them.”

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Contents

Top Highlights

“Strange it is that in the midst of all these religious calisthenics no one remembered to tell the sensitive, eager boy how to be saved.” (Page 17)

“The true test of spiritual greatness is permanence.” (Page 64)

“Greater expositors than Simpson there have been, but few have equaled him in his ability to reach the human heart.” (Page 115)

“He was more concerned with the leading of the Spirit and the prayer of faith than with rigid conformity to a doctrine—even his own doctrine.” (Page 86)

“He may have sometimes forgotten that God had called him to be a husband and a father as well as a minister of the Gospel.” (Page 107)

Product Details

• Title: Wingspread: Albert B. Simpson—A Study in Spiritual Altitude
• Author: A. W. Tozer
• Edition: Centenary ed.
• Publisher: WingSpread
• Print Publication Date: 1943
• Logos Release Date: 2008
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Simpson, Albert Benjamin, 1843-1919
• ISBNs: 9780802418524, 9781600660078, 160066007X, 080241852X
• Resource ID: LLS:WINGSPREAD
• Resource Type: text.monograph.biography
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-03T21:02:51Z

About A. W. Tozer

A. W. Tozer (1897–1963) was a dynamic preacher, prolific writer, and a no-nonsense man of God. Aiden Wilson Tozer responded to the call of Christ at the age of 17. After becoming an active witness of Jesus as a lay preacher, he joined The Christian and Missionary Alliance and was soon serving as the pastor of West Virginia’s Alliance Church.

In 1928, he transferred to the Southside Alliance Church in Chicago where he served for 31 years. During that time he preached on the Moody Bible Institute’s radio station and was often invited to speak at Wheaton College in Pierce Chapel. Tozer spent the final years of his life as the pastor of Avenue Road Church in Toronto and the editor of The Alliance Life magazine.

Tozer authored over 40 books, including The Attributes of God, Volume One, Tozer on Christian Leadership, We Travel an Appointed Way, The Pursuit of God, and God’s Pursuit of Man.