Biography
William H. Durham lived from 1873 to 1912 and became an influential pastor in the early Pentecostal movement. He led the North Avenue Mission in Chicago from 1901 until 1911, then moved to Los Angeles. His ministry took place while Pentecostal believers were still forming their institutions and explaining their convictions.[1] [2]
Durham became especially associated with the finished work understanding of sanctification. This teaching challenged the Wesleyan expectation of a separate instantaneous experience of entire sanctification and placed the believer's cleansing in relation to Christ's completed work. The disagreement helped shape important divisions within Pentecostalism.[1]
From 1909 until his death, Durham published The Pentecostal Testimony. The periodical carried his theological articles alongside reports from Pentecostal communities. Surviving issues and his collected papers are held by the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.[1] [2]
He died in 1912, leaving a short but consequential ministry. His historical importance rests on both pastoral leadership and the theological debate his writings helped develop. Reading those surviving publications allows his teaching to be examined in its own words and context.[1] [2]
Sources and references
Sources
“The one great need of this hour is prayer. Not formal prayer, but real, intercessory prayer in the Holy Spirit.”
“God wants to bring us to an attitude of prayer and seeking His face.”
“He wants us to see the great need of His work, and hold on to Him night and day, till His mighty power is demonstrated in our midst.”
“When His power is manifested, He wants us to humble our hearts and pray more earnestly than ever.”
“O! how many great revivals are stopped, because when God begins to work, we turn aside to rejoice in what He is doing and neglect to keep in real, humble, believing prayer.”
“God would never stop any revival in these days, if His conditions were met for keeping it going.”
“Let us then, lay hold on the mighty weapon of ‘all prayer,’ and prevail with God, till He gives us the desires of our hearts.”
“It is absolutely necessary for those who have received the Spirit to continually yield themselves up as a living sacrifice to God, and in real, inward humility walk in the Spirit and live a life of prayer and faith.”
“There were some who actually seemed to think when the Spirit fell on them, that they would be excused from taking up the daily cross, and living the crucified life.”
“There is no experience which in itself brings us to perfection.”
“Nothing is a greater grief to me than to hear anyone contend that by any single experience they were brought into a state that makes it unnecessary for them to continually feed on the Word of God, and watch and pray.”
“We will only grow and prosper as we abide in Christ.”
“It requires continual vigilance, prayer, and faith to overcome.”
“The mistake of this age has been omitting to clearly teach the overcoming life.”
“The Christian life is a battle from conversion to glorification.”
“It is by faith that He abides in our hearts. We are saved by faith, and by faith we keep saved.”
“It requires just as much faith to keep right with God as it did to get right in the first place.”
“This blessed Gospel, as a flame of fire, burned in my very bones, and my inmost soul was aflame with it.”
“Christ is all and in all, and this wonderful truth makes everything to center in Him.”
“The devil can never move those who have this precious faith.”
“The man the devil hates and fears is the one who has rested his faith on the finished work of Christ.”
“The man who sees himself dead in Christ and raised up with Him, and who in faith abides in Him, is the man who has the life of victory.”
“The question with us was, and is, ‘Nevertheless, what saith the Scriptures?’”
“God by His Spirit led me to His Word, and after months of careful and prayerful study of it, I was convinced.”