Saturday, April 11, 2020

Memorials to Rev. John J. Murray


Note: I received the email (with links) below from my friend Sherman Isbell yesterday and thought others might profit from it. I remember reading Murray's booklet Behind a Frowning Providence several years ago and was edified by it. 

Dear friends,

A friend of mine going back fifty years, Rev. John J. Murray, died recently in Scotland from the coronavirus. He was a minister of my denomination, the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing). In the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the editors at the Banner of Truth Trust, and then studied for the ministry, overlapping my time in the same seminary in Edinburgh. After he became a pastor one of his three children, Lynda, died in 1980 at the age of fourteen, and he wrote the booklet, Behind a Frowning Providence. More recently, his daughter Anna died of pancreatic cancer in 2019.

John's son Andy is a social worker with a Christian relief organization, Bethany Christian Trust. Andy has a fine blog, "Ragged Theology." There Andy has provided some fascinating tributes to his father and to his sister Anna, including a film and a written account about Anna and her Christian testimony. The blog address is http://raggedtheology.blogspot.com/.

The funeral sermon for John was preached by William MacLeod of Glasgow, formerly of Portree, and may be heard here: http://bible-sermons.org.uk/audio-sermons/4712-their-works-do-follow-them/. Andy also made a video with reflections at the cemetery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5fBxgJO7ro.

Here is an earlier tribute that Andy wrote in 2018 to mark his father's forty years in the ministry, and laying out the emphases of his preaching and life:

Here is Andy on twitter, writing about his Christian social work:

Behind a Frowning Providence:

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