E.M. Bounds Speaking to the Modern Church through Darrel King, on Prayer and Other Concerns

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E.M. Bounds Speaking to the Modern Church through Darrel King: Prayer & Other Concerns

Review by Ronald Keener

A few years back when I happened upon “E.M. Bounds on Prayer” it was as if I had discovered

my grandfather’s gold pocket watch, long lost in a drawer of the bureau. E.M. Bounds himself,

who passed away in 1913, was of equal value. His several writings had been collected in to one

volume of 622 pages. And the value of his collection was not that he told us over and over how

to pray, but rather why we should pray.

For example, on page 235 of my volume, Bounds writes: “Silence is not prayer. Prayer is asking

God for something that we do not have, that we desire, and that He has promised to give in

answer to prayer. Prayer is really verbal asking. Words are in prayer. Strong words and true

words are found in prayer. Desires in prayer are put in words. The praying one is a pleader. He

urges his prayer by arguments, promises, and needs. Sometimes loud words are in prayer.”

But moreover, Bounds knows how to use the English language. In expressing why we should

pray, he is bright, clever, and articulate. His pleadings have energy and, yes, excitement. He

makes one want to pray in order to receive God’s blessings. What a guy. I wish I had just one-

tenth of his power in prayer.

So the other day I was in LifeWay bookstore looking through church resources, and what to my

wandering eyes should appear, but the volume, “E.M. Bounds Speaks to the Modern Church”

by Darrel D. King (Bridge-Logos, 2009). To find a book about Bounds was in itself a find, but to

boot, King is identified as “an E.M. Bounds scholar who has many interesting anecdotes to

share about this great preacher.” It was news to me that E.M. Bounds had become the subject

of another man’s scholarship.

King’s book pulls in Bounds on seven different areas of concern: spiritual leadership, financial

responsibilities, worldliness, boasting and pride, the pulpit, discipline and emotional religion. Of

the first King writes that “a church in turmoil is fragmented because of the lack of spiritual

leadership…. Many clergy who are in leadership of churches and church organizations attained

their positions not by spiritual evaluation but by whom they know, their resumes, and

promises. Those entrusted in selecting leaders need to pray much and evaluate their spiritual

lifestyle and integrity.”

There are times when King’s own comments can be confused with Bounds for their intensity,

point of view, and energetic delivery. The student has taken on the strength of the teacher.

Says King: “Church leaders must take a strong stand against intellectualism becoming the

emphasis in church leadership or the spirituality of church leaders will certainly diminish.”

There is a bit of a feel to King’s comments that might put his concerns not in the first decade of

this century, but rather in the mid-1950s when, for example, intellectualism was more of a

problem for the faith.

You might say that too of the chapter on worldliness, where King devotes 34 pages to the

subject. But while the word may not be used as much today in our churches (other than my

own Anabaptist church), the concern is very real and probably more so given an increasing

secular world. Says King, “Today [meaning the first decade of this century] the affluent church

of America stands more in the shadow of the world than in the shadow of the Cross.”

Take this eloquent perspective of Bounds, introduced by King, “concerning the price that will be

required to stand against worldliness”: “The world charms us,” says Bounds, “with most

engaging forces, but we will be deluded if we deem that our rejection of it will cost us nothing

but the loss of a real or financial present good. Hell has no hate like the world rejected. This

beautiful, bright world, so attractive and seemingly so innocent, awakens the most inviting and

malignant hate against those who dare reject its profitable goods or forewarns its allegiance. It

pours its vial of fiery tribulations on those devoted heads.”

The reader unfamiliar with E.M. Bounds, and most people don’t recognize his name among

Christian leaders, would do well to turn first to his works and then to King’s more current