Who are your influences and why are you attracted to their persona?

I asked the question and perhaps you will understand better if I answer the question myself.

Isaiah 50:4 The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

I do not remember who introduced me to the works of A. W. Pink but I do remember the impression that was left upon my soul. Here was a brash bold author from the turn of the century who was well read and was firm in his convictions. His words stung of the correction I needed and desperately sought. His style was matter of fact, without hesitation and had that air of black and white.

I liked what I read because it touched something in me that I was not aware of at the time. My natural tendencies. That resonance reaffirmed the old man and not the new creation in Christ. To become that new man, I had to stop affirming the old tendencies in favor of this new identity.

Judgment, even if speaking truth, is still judgment. What I discovered as I grew in Christ is that truth doesn’t have to be blunt. Some like it but most do not. I could take it, and that is fine. I could also dish it out and that was not acceptable to my Lord. I was still being me, the natural man, educated in the Word in a style many found offensive. Then I began to see the agenda that he had taken up and how his agenda directed his language to well-meaning students. His language became our language and it cost us friendships that would have better served Christ if left intact.

I studied alone in that enormous library of intellect without any fellowship with earnest Christians. Our theologies need to be tested to refine the ideas that settle in our minds. If their roots are not of the Tree of Life, they need to be cut off.