John Murray

I recently finished reading The Life of John Murray which my brother Jonny so kindly gave me for my birthday. Murray was Orthodox Presbyterian. In fact, this book makes it sound like he wrote the OP position on a number of subjects. So there are things I definitely disagree with him about. But I found his story fascinating, inspiring, and encouraging. Here are a few tidbits:

-Murray was born in rural Scotland and was largely the product of the Scottish Reformed circles he grew up in. (That's a history I want to study more.)

-Murray's denomination usually simply mentored men who wanted to be pastors, but they sent Murray to study at Princeton (the main Reformed seminary at the time) with the idea that he would provide theological direction for the denomination upon his return to Scotland.

-Murray attended Princeton in the 1920s when it was a battleground between historic Christianity and a more modern, liberal "faith." Murray helped lead the student movement for staying biblical. (Interestingly enough, both the faculty and the Board as well as the students wanted to stay conservative. It was the denomination that forced the change.)

-Murray was denied the pulpit in his Scottish denomination because of his view on the Sabbath. Murray had an extremely conservative view of Sabbath-keeping. But his denomination wanted him to deny communion to anyone who took public transportation to church on Sunday, and he refused to do that. So his lifelong desire to be a pastor was denied. He became a seminary professor instead.

-Murray was part of the group of professors that left Princeton in order to start Westminster in 1930.

-Murray had a huge respect for the Word of God. He taught systematic theology, but he introduced every new subject by reviewing all the texts on the subject in the original language. He had a large portion of Romans memorized in the Greek.

-Murray wrote a two volume commentary on Romans that I want to read. A few highlights mentioned in the book:

"Just as there is to be no social aristocracy in the church, so there is to be no intellectual autocrat."

"Pride consists in coveting or exercising a prerogative that does not belong to us." (especially helpful to me because I always wondered, if humility was being aware of our sin, how was Jesus the most humble person ever.)

"The love of God is supreme and incomparable. We are never asked to love God as we love ourselves or our neighbor as we love God."

-Murray believed that a major missing aspect at Westminster compared to Princeton (historically) was the lack of opportunity to experience the faith together- to hear the professors preach not just teach, to pray together, to share biblical fellowship together, etc. He thought the Seminary should not only teach true religion, but also provide examples of zealous piety- "theology coming through men who are on fire."

-It appears that, other than articles for the Reformed journal that he helped run, Murray never pursued the publication of any of his writings. In fact, he is known to have denied the publication of some of his writings because he was concerned they wouldn't be helpful.

-Murray was largely unknown in Britain until Dr. Martin Loyd-Jones re-introduced him. Then, 40 years after first leaving to study in America, he became a theological leader to the young Reformed resurgence in Britain, not unlike his denomination originally intended, but with far greater scope.

-Murray retired while still very able-bodied in order to run the family farm and care for his senile older sister. It was at that point that he finally got to do what he always wanted to do- pastor a small (20 or so member) country church.