A. W. Pink: The Pioneer of a Modern Reformation (Pt. 2: The Fruit of Faithful Study)

A.W. Pink (1886-1952)
thinkGospel.com

By Aaron Dunlop - Posted at thinkGospel.com:

By all accounts the life of A. W. Pink is a phenomenon. John MacLeod, in his spiritual history of the Ilse of Lewis (Banner of the West, 2010), where the Pinks spent their last days and where they are both buried, is not at all favorable to Arthur Pink and claims that his reputation has been “puffed” only by Ian Murray’s Banner of Truth biography. He states that many in the Scottish Highlands viewed him as “an English nutter” and that “on Lewis, few remember Pink with affection; he contributed nothing to her worship, or fellowship and he has no part in local Evangelical consciousness.”

There is no doubt that these accusations and other claims identifying him as “eccentric,” “a restless, rootless fellow” could have some credibility if we consider the evidence objectively. It does seem strange that he could live in Stornoway in 1949 and ignore the revival that took place at the time (he completely discounted it), or that he never met men like Kenneth MacRea—who also discounted the revival—and others ministering so close to him.

However eccentric Pink was and however content he was to have “excommunicated all Christendom,” there is no doubt that the Lord did use his ministry and would indeed use his writings with a wider influence after his death. Iain Murray is correct when he says “the widespread circulation of his writings after his death made him one of the most influential evangelical authors in the second half of the twentieth century.”

As far back as 1919 Pink had felt the call of God to leave the pastorate and to give himself wholly to his writing ministry. Many factors played into the struggle with this calling. By 1940, however, the Lord had hidden the Pinks away in a rented attic in the North of Scotland which enabled him to continue his writing ministry. There he would continue to prepare a body of literature for a new generation of evangelicals.

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