Influences

Norman Grubb was taught by the Holy Spirit and also by many in whom the Spirit lived. These influences range from great Christian men and women of his generation as well as those who had lived hundreds of years earlier. Their knowing of God ranged from Christian and biblical understanding to Far Eastern mystics, to scientists and poets as well as to everyday people who have had a glimpse of the Holy One.

Norman was an avid reader.  The following is a quote from one of Norman’s personal letters concerning the way he would read followed by a partial list of books that he references in other letters.

I don’t personally dig into all the views and outlooks of all those who “feed” me. I catch gloriously what glows to me, and I tie it back to my Bible and Jesus’ foundations, and it adds vastly to me what my normal Bible teachers never gave me. I suppose we may call this reading dangerous, but I’ve long believed in living dangerously! You might say the same of that Oxford Book of Mystical Verse. Some transcendently glorious things in it; but from others, I glean flashes though sometimes (as for instance with Algernon Swinburne who was officially a non-believer) he hasn’t written from a “Christian” point of view.

So, love, I think you must go the way you feel is right. There are those who think it is right to discard any book which is not wholly “sound”, and we may need such to keep us steady – but I go for my reading and feeding to all kinds of pastures, but that is because I have tasted The True Pasture, and can soon discard and detect what does not lead to Jesus.

C. T. Studd

Rees Howells