Last week I got to visit with Shaun Tabatt and share about my new book on the life of Andrew Murray. Listen to our interview below.
-Download the MP3: http://ow.ly/SMDUz
-Read the show notes: http://ShaunTabatt.com/028
-Subscribe to The Shaun Tabatt Show on iTunes: http://ow.ly/Pxz1x
To find out more about Andrew Murray: Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa, visit the Andrew Murray book page on my website.
Why is it worthwhile to read an account of the life and ministry of Andrew Murray (1828-1917), the distinguished pastor-devotional writer from South Africa? Here’s a brief rundown of my top ten reasons:
Both during his lifetime and to this day Murray’s books have been widely read and appreciated by Christians throughout the world. His books are thoroughly spiritual, devotional and practical in nature. But because Murray’s books contain virtually no autobiographical material, many people who have greatly appreciated and profited from his writings know very little about his life and ministry. However, they can get to know the man behind the pen by reading a biography about him.
I hope you’ll read my recently-published Andrew Murray: Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Murray’s is an inspiring and instructive example well worth considering.
Copyright 2015 by Vance E. Christie
I’m delighted to share that Christian Focus Publications has announced the publication date of my forthcoming biography, Andrew Murray: Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. The book will be released in the United Kingdom in July then in the United States in August.
In the coming weeks both Christian Focus Publications and my own website’s Andrew Murray book page will post additional information about the volume and where to order it. But here’s some initial information:
Book Description:
In an era that saw many gifted and diligent ministers, missionaries and evangelists being used by God to powerfully advance Christ’s Kingdom work in South Africa, Andrew Murray (1828-1917) emerged as that country’s premier preacher, devotional writer and Church leader. Andrew Murray’s writings and influence are still felt today and Vance Christie skillfully and faithfully brings his story to life for a new generation. (Christian Focus Publications)
Endorsements For Andrew Murray: Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa:
“Vance Christie has done an excellent job on Murray’s life… This is a fine, relatively brief volume on a huge subject, and I find it accurate and edifying. I shall recommend it to my classes, and to some of the conferences where I speak.”
-Douglas F. Kelly, Richard Jordan Professor of Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina
“Andrew Murray, though dead, still speaks to us in this charming volume. Walk with this great evangelist through the years of preparation, great success in ministry, and struggles with sickness. May this book introduce a new generation to the life of this man of God, and stimulate faith that the God of Murray is also our God and can lead us also to faithful and fruitful service.”
-Adrian Warnock, Author of Raised with Christ and Hope Reborn and prolific Blogger at adrianwarnock.com
“… an edifying book on a model Protestant saint. May God use it to revive His church today.”
-Douglas A. Sweeney, Chair, Church History & History of Christian Thought Department, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois
Book Information:
Pre-Order Today:
In a few months my newest biography, Andrew Murray of South Africa, is to be published by Christian Focus Publications. Murray was blessed with a devout ancestry and upbringing. He reminds us (1) how blessed we are if we have had those same benefits and (2) what a great blessing we can be to our descendants by providing them with those spiritual advantages.
Andrew Murray’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all deeply committed Christians. Andrew’s father, after whom he was named, emigrated from Scotland to South Africa as a young man. Murray, Sr., devoted his entire ministerial career of over forty years to pastoring the Dutch Reformed Church in Graaff-Reinet, located some 500 miles northeast of Cape Town. In addition to shepherding his own congregation, Murray established eight other Dutch Reformed Churches in that part of Cape Colony.
Murray, Sr., married Maria Stegmann. They had sixteen children, eleven of whom lived to adulthood. One of their children testified of their home: “The chief characteristic of the household was reverence. We reverenced God’s name and God’s day and God’s Word. The wife reverenced her husband; the children reverenced their parents; the servants reverenced their master and mistress. The children were trained in the ways of the Lord. They were taught to render obedience in such a way that they never seemed to know it.”
Murray was deeply concerned about the spiritual welfare of his children and that they would come to have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. On a Sunday evening, following family worship when a child came for a goodnight kiss, he would ask, ‘Well, dearie, have you given your heart to Christ yet?’ or ‘Will you not, before you go to bed tonight, give yourself to Jesus?’ On a child’s birthday he would say, ‘This is your birthday. Are you born again?’
Murray impressed spiritual truths upon his children through other means as well. A daughter related: “Many sweet words out of God’s Word became engraven in the hearts of his children by hearing their father repeat them with such feeling and emphasis. The word of Christ did indeed dwell in him richly, and he taught and admonished us in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in his heart unto the Lord [Col. 3:16]. Many a sweet verse has been imprinted on our minds and memories from hearing him repeat it half aloud to himself, as he walked up and down the large dining room after supper.”
Maria Murray also played a crucial role in the spiritual development and general education of her children. She taught them to read before they were old enough to attend school, and the hymns and Bible verses they learned at her knee remained in their memory throughout life. When her husband was away from home on ministry responsibilities, she listened to her sons rehearse their daily lessons before they went to school.
Peace and restfulness of spirit, even in the midst of work, marked Maria’s life. A regular habit of personal communion with God was the secret to her trust and tranquility. She always took time for her private devotions, and her children and servants knew that when her bedroom door was closed she was not to be disturbed unless absolutely necessary.
The Lord’s Day was strictly observed by the Murrays. There were almost always three Sunday church services, in addition to Sunday School, and the older Murray children were expected to attend them all. In addition, Mrs. Murray taught her children the Shorter Catechism on Sunday afternoon, and toward evening the family enjoyed a time of singing together. One of their children later wrote: “On looking back upon it all, it does seem almost wonderful that the children did not weary of the long services. For the morning service lasted two hours, and on Communion Sundays three, and we remained to the end. It is perhaps to be ascribed to habit, or still more to the fact that the parents delighted in the worship of God, so the children learned to delight in it too.”
All of Andrew and Maria’s children and nearly all of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren came to faith in Christ and faithfully served Him, in various capacities, with their lives. In 1922 ‘a remarkable centenary gathering’ was held in Graaff-Reinet to commemorate the arrival of Andrew Murray, Sr., in South Africa. 220 of his 486 descendants gathered for the special reunion. With humble gratitude to God it was duly noted: “During the hundred years now ending, over fifty ministers have been connected with the family by birth or marriage, and about the same number of men and women have given the whole or part of their lives to work in the foreign mission field. Some of the young men are now attending the Theological Seminary and others are expecting to enter it in due time, some are studying medicine in the hope of becoming medical missionaries. … Looking over the past one could only adore the goodness of the covenant-keeping God and entrust to the same God the keeping of the future generations.”
A few years before his death in 1917, Andrew Murray, Jr., doubtless thinking of the blessed influence of his own parents and grandparents, wrote in a memorandum addressed to the entire Murray family circle: ‘A godly parentage is a priceless boon. Its blessing rests not only upon the children of the first generation, but has often been traced in many successive generations.’
Copyright 2015 by Vance E. Christie
Several weeks ago I was delighted to submit to Christian Focus Publications the completed manuscript of my newest biography, Andrew Murray of South Africa. In the coming months running up to the book’s publication I’d like to share some of the many valuable lessons to be learned through Murray’s remarkable life. I begin with the tremendous model he was of combining a high degree of both action and contemplation in his Christian life and service.
Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was a man of tireless action. He served for fifty-seven years as an active minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, pastoring four separate congregations, including his final pastorate of three and a half decades. Murray was chosen by his ministerial colleagues to serve six terms (totaling some twenty-five years) as Moderator of Cape Colony’s Dutch Reformed Synod. He traveled and ministered more extensively throughout all of South Africa than any other minister of any denomination in S.A. in his day.
Murray played a key role in the founding of several educational institutions. He personally carried out a number of major evangelistic tours of different parts of the country, pointing large numbers of people to salvation in Christ. He took the lead in establishing and promoting the work of various foreign missionary societies to carry the Gospel to unreached people groups outside the bounds of the Colony. Murray sponsored and was featured at numerous conferences aimed at calling believers to a higher plain of Christian living and service. He actively supported a number of student ministry organizations as well as home mission works that ministered to military personnel, the poor and moral outcasts. He also carried out prominent preaching ministries in Europe and America.
While being a man of seemingly-constant action, Murray was also a contemplative individual. His mind constantly probed new avenues and depths of biblical, spiritual truth. His thinking and teaching were thoroughly devotional in nature. He lived with a profound awareness of the presence of God and a preoccupation with matters spiritual. He was deeply devoted to prayer. He had an appreciation for the writings of certain Christian mystics and has sometimes been classified as being a sane, sanctified mystic himself.
Through his prolific writing ministry, which saw nearly 240 works (including over seventy books) published, Murray shared his fervent spiritual perspectives on numerous subjects. His writings reveal the breadth and the depth of his spiritual reflections. Both his preaching and writing ministries clearly set forth the great importance he placed on active, consecrated service on the one hand and the cultivation of deep personal piety and devotional practices on the other hand.
Many Christians tend to incline more toward one or the other – active service or reflective contemplation – in their Christian lives. Andrew Murray’s example (to say nothing of such biblical models as King David and the Apostle Paul) reminds us that both service and contemplation are vitally important in our living for the Lord. We ought to actively cultivate and seek to maintain a healthy balance between both emphases. As we do, by God’s grace we’ll be well-equipped and useful servants of Christ.
Copyright 2015 by Vance E. Christie
Several of my recent website “Perspectives” have featured incidents from the lives of prominent Christians of the past which are included in my book Timeless Stories: God’s Incredible Work in the Lives of Inspiring Christians. Here are six quick reasons I think this book is well worth reading and sharing with others:
1. The lives of great men and women of faith are replete with fascinating and spiritually-beneficial stories. Not fictional stories; rather, actual events from the experiences of those committed Christians. Some of those stories touch the heart – or the funny bone. Many touch the soul at a deep level by inspiring, instructing, encouraging, comforting or convicting. The stories in this book are grouped into eight chapters, each having to do with some practical, primary aspect of living out one’s Christianity: Family, Service, Faith, Prayer, Witness, Forgiveness, Stewardship and Adversity.
2. This book features stories from the lives of ten eminent Christian couples or individuals who ministered in the last three centuries: John Wesley; George Whitefield; George Muller; William and Catherine Booth; Hudson Taylor; Charles Spurgeon; Dwight Moody; Amy Carmichael; Corrie ten Boom; Billy and Ruth Graham. Timeless Stories is an enjoyable way to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with many interesting and instructive incidents from the lives of those outstanding Christian servants. Hopefully this book will whet the appetite of many individuals to read more about these (and other) remarkable believers and to gain much further benefit from their personal examples.
3. Timeless Stories is a treasure trove of illustrations that can be used with great benefit by Christian pastors and teachers. Each chapter in the book contains 20-25 true stories that model various aspects of the life-related theme treated in that chapter. Throughout my own ministerial career I have shared hundreds of such historic anecdotes (along with plenty of contemporary illustrations) to profitably flesh out scriptural principles being promoted. This book also includes a helpful Scripture Index, as over fifty of the stories in the volume include references to specific Bible passages.
4. These stories can be used with great profit as a supplement for family devotions. Once when my three daughters were very young I offered to tell them a story before bedtime prayer. That was a periodic feature of our nighttime family devotions, and they knew the type of tale I often shared. So they spontaneously started chanting, competition-like, the names of two individuals about whom they had heard a number of stories. “Moody! Moody!” shouted two. “Hudson! Hudson!” countered the third with equal enthusiasm. Some families have read clear through Timeless Stories (a few stories at a time) as part of their family devotions. Kids will enjoy and benefit from these stories if we will but share them.
5. This is an easy book to read, even for people who don’t read a lot. The stories are short and interesting, so they tend to engage the reader’s attention. If the book is set aside for a time, it’s easy to pick up on the theme of a chapter when one gets back to it. It’s easy to read a few or several stories in a short period of time. Before a person knows it, he or she has finished another chapter, then the entire book. This is the kind of book (not heavy but very worthwhile) that’s a pleasure to read during a relaxing afternoon or evening at home, at bedtime, while traveling or while on vacation.
6. Timeless Stories makes a great gift book. Even people not acquainted with historic Christian biography will find these stories engaging, relevant and beneficial. Christians of various maturity levels can profit from the positive models and life-lessons communicated in this book. I have not hesitated to share this book with non-Christians too, knowing that they’ll read of the Gospel and of people coming to faith in Christ through its pages.
If you’ve not read Timeless Stories, I hope you will. If you have read it, I would enjoy hearing how it encouraged and helped you.
Copyright 2014 by Vance E. Christie
My book Women of Faith and Courage presents abbreviated biographical accounts of the lives and ministries of five outstanding Christian women: Susanna Wesley, Fanny Crosby, Catherine Booth, Mary Slessor and Corrie ten Boom. (You can read a thumbnail sketch of each of their lives in my March 6, 2014, blog “Five Inspiring Christian Women Worth Getting to Know.”) Here are several reasons I’d encourage you to get and read the book:
1. It provides the opportunity to become acquainted (or reacquainted) with a handful of Christ’s choicest female servants from the past three centuries. These women gained great and abiding renown (which they certainly did not seek) for their exceptional Christian piety and service. Their examples are absolutely worthy of our consideration; through them we will be encouraged, inspired and instructed in our own Christian life and service.
2. Not only women, but also young people as well as men can profit greatly from the examples of these consecrated Christians. Women of Faith and Courage would be a great book to read with one’s children as part of family devotions. It could also be used beneficially in ladies study and discussion groups.
3. The lives of these women show that God has different ministries for each of His servants to fulfill. Susanna Wesley’s ministries centered on her children in her home and, to a lesser degree, on the people in her husband’s parish. Fanny Crosby’s primary ministry was hymnwriting. But she also used that as a platform for speaking ministries in missions, YMCAs and other public settings. In addition to placing a priority on the spiritual upbringing of her children, Catherine Booth carried out a powerful preaching ministry, especially emphasizing evangelism and a proper Christian response to the down-and-out of society.
Mary Slessor’s missionary career in Calabar (southern Nigeria) involved school teaching, itinerate evangelism, church planting, foster care and judicial responsibilities. Corrie ten Boom’s varied service included ministering to young people and feebleminded individuals of her community, harboring fugitives from the Nazis, providing a bright Christian witness in the darkness of German concentration camps and, after the war, heralding the message of God’s love and forgiveness throughout the world. Their examples remind us to identify and fulfill the unique ministries the Lord has for us, and to remain sensitive to new ministries He will lead us into as we go along in our service of Him.
4. Each of these women experienced marked hardships in life. For most if not all of them, difficulties were regular rather than periodic occurrences. Instead of turning away from God because of such adversity, they drew near to Him for His help and strength in getting through the trials. As a result, their faith was progressively strengthened rather than weakened. As it was with them, so it is with contemporary believers: Hardships tend to be part and parcel of the Christian life; God uses those difficulties to strengthen the faith and develop the character of His children.
5. All these women were characterized by selfless service of the Lord and others. Their lives were all about serving Christ and benefiting others, not at all about living for self. They sacrificed many personal conveniences and comforts in order to faithfully serve as they did. Periodically they were tempted to feel sorry for themselves in light of the constant and sometimes heavy sacrifices their service required of them. But the vast majority of the time they bore their self-sacrificial service willingly and without complaint. Their example is a necessary corrective to many modern Christians who are absorbed with their own interests and comforts while manifesting little inclination or willingness to expend their lives in serving Christ and those around them.
6. Another commendable characteristic of these ladies was their proper balancing of family and other ministry responsibilities. As younger women, Mary and Corrie were both extremely devoted to helping care and provide for their family members. In addition, for many years Mary served as a loving foster mother and Corrie as an affectionate adopted aunt to numbers of children. Neither of them married, though they had that fond desire for a season. They were content to remain single and thus be freer to carry out the specialized ministries the Lord had for them to fulfill.
Susanna and Catherine were loyal to and supportive of their husbands’ ministries. At times that required considerable effort on their part, due to heavy ministry demands, straitened finances or, in Susanna’s case, having a domineering and insensitive husband. Susanna and Catherine also dedicated a great deal of time and effort to the training of their several children. They raised their children with strict but loving discipline. Their primary concern with their children was that they would develop into devout, active Christians.
The positive examples and high principles of all these women with regard to fulfilling one’s family responsibilities, deciding whether or not to marry, and raising children for the Lord are worthy of emulation by Christian singles, spouses and parents today.
Copyright 2014 by Vance E. Christie