In Everything By Prayer — Sermon by A. W. Tozer (preached in 1960)

… Everything by education, they say now. What we need is a more educated clergy, more educated ministry, they say. Well, I believe in education. I’ve said that many times, I believe in education. And if you don’t get it in school you ought to get it in some way or other. There are books everywhere. You can go down here to Eatons and for $25 you can buy yourself enough good books to get yourself an education in some fields. And you can get it in a year’s time, if you’ll read. But I have noticed that when a denomination starts to backslide they always start to elevate their standards academically. The less we have of the Holy Ghost, the more we have to know about Plato and Aristotle. Call that being acquainted with contemporary theology. I think that we ought to be acquainted with the ancient theology of Moses, Isaiah, David, Daniel, Paul, Peter, John and the rest, and let the contemporary fellows kick, kick, kick the football around because always there’s a bunch of self conscience intellectuals who are busy kicking around a current football having to do with theology…..