That’s one of my favorite Alistair Begg quotes. I’ve repeated it many times, it may have spent a week or two on our church sign a few years back. Recently I saw a nearly identical quote (Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian) attributed to A.W. Tozer. So who said it? Very possibly both pastors did. Tozer was an American pastor, magazine editor and spiritual mentor to many. He was given honorary degrees by multiple institutions. He passed away in 1963. Begg was born in 1952 and continues to pastor the same church he has been at since 1983. You can find the quote attributed to either man probably because Alistair Begg was quoting A.W. Tozer when he said it. Lots of people quote Tozer to this day. Imagine I were speaking on the political and social divide in our country right now and said “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” That’s a direct quote from Abraham Lincoln. It is also very similar to Matthew 12:25, not the whole verse but an obvious reference to it. We are a lot more conscious about citing material than in times past. The Apostle Paul would string together three sentence fragments from three different Old Testament books and simply cite “the Prophets” or “the Fathers” as reference.

After citing Begg all this time I may attribute those words to Tozer in the future. The truth is worth repeating. Maybe someday someone will quote something I said. I’m still waiting for “God is near” to catch on.