How Murray Harris Has Influenced Sovereign Grace
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast - where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, before we started recording, we were talking about how there's just a number of gifted teachers that we have benefited from over the years in Sovereign Grace. I mean, we could really just start a whole new podcast talking about all of the gifts that God has given us in the form of teachers. We stand on the shoulders of others very clearly, but today you want to talk about a man who has had a significant influence on many of us in Sovereign Grace churches over the years, including you.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, I do. I want to talk about Murray J. Harris. Murray Harris, if you don't know him, was a professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the Chicago area, which is going to be closing, unfortunately, I believe, at the end of this academic year, and moving to Vancouver. But he was a professor there for many years. He was also the warden of Tindale house in Cambridge for a time, and he got his PhD from the University of Manchester under FF Bruce, which is impressive academic cred right there. Murray Harris is a scholar, but also a humble, godly man, and he has had an influence on Sovereign Grace in a couple of ways. The first in just what he's written, Slave of Christ, which we talked about in a podcast, I don't know, maybe a couple of years ago. I have right here is one of my favorite books written by Murray Harris and maybe one of my favorite books overall, and I read this at a time early when I was in pastoral ministry and this book had a completely life shaping influence on how I understood pastoral ministry, and I thank God for him. I've read a couple of his commentaries at least. For example, his commentary on Second Corinthians is outstanding, and I just think we have pastors that do have Murray Harris books on their shelves and read them and are influenced by him.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah, including me.
Mark Prater:
Alright, come on.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah. I love Slave of Christ, the Seven Sayings of Jesus on the Cross. I believe that was a recommendation from CJ a number of years ago. I've benefited from that book, a very small book, but packs a lot of punch. Slave of Christ is just a classic and a must read in my opinion. And so yes, many of us have enjoyed Dr. Harris's influence and teaching on us from afar over the years, but recently you have a cool story about recent events that happened and meaningful interaction with Murray Harris in connection with Sovereign Grace.
Mark Prater:
Yes. The other way that Murray Harris has really influenced and impacted Sovereign Grace is through his influence on Jeff and Julie Purswell. So for those of you that don't know, Jeff attended and graduated from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School at a time when Murray Harris was professor of New Testament there. Jeff was impacted obviously by his teaching, but they were really affected and influenced by his life, his humility and the godliness of this man. Jeff and Julie, just this past summer in July, were able to travel to Sydney, Australia to serve both of our Sovereign Grace churches there at a time when the church that Dave Taylor planted was celebrating 15 years of Sovereign Grace being in Australia. So it was just a wonderful moment for the churches there and for Jeff and Julie to participate and they served those churches so well. But while on that side of the world, they able to get a couple of days, it was two or three days and get over to New Zealand where Dr. Harris lives and they were able to spend a couple of days with him and just had this very meaningful personal interaction with him that Jeff just tells through tears actually. And before he left, Jeff said, I think it might be good to take him just a financial gift from Sovereign Grace just to thank him for his influence.
I thought that was a great idea. I approved it and actually increased the amount and Jeff took that and gave it to Dr. Harris while he was there. After Jeff and Julie got back home, Jeff received a letter that was written by Dr. Harris to all of Sovereign Grace. It was addressed to the leadership team, but the letter is written to Sovereign Grace churches and this is what the letter says,
To Sovereign Grace Churches
I wish to acknowledge with warm gratitude the generous gift conveyed to me by Jeff Purswell during his recent visit to Australia and New Zealand. As you are aware, I've known Jeff and Julie for many years dating back to our time together at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. You are indeed blessed to have this abundantly gifted and devoted pair in leadership roles in your churches. You continue to have evidence of their distinctive contribution to the church both in the US and worldwide. Their brief visit to New Zealand has been a highlight and an encouragement for me.
With pleasure, I have decided to use your kind gift in purchasing 120 copies of my most recent book Compelling Evidence: That Jesus Rose from the Dead and The Jesus is Fully Divine, for two local churches who will provide copies to members who are engaging with unbelievers. May the Supreme Lord continue to prosper your service for Him.
Murray J. Harris.
So when I read this letter, we as a leadership team when we read the letter, we were humbled and deeply impacted that he would use this gift to reach more people for the gospel. It tells you the kind of man that Murray J. Harris is. We were so affected by that as a leadership team. Jon Payne had the idea and we surprised Jeff with this at our recent retreat, had the idea of writing a letter back to Dr. Harris to thank him and I just thought it was so well done. I wanted our listeners to this podcast or readers of this podcast to know about it.
Benjamin Kreps:
Nice.
Mark Prater:
So we approved this letter and was sent on behalf of the leadership team back to Dr. Harris.
Dr. Harris,
Greetings in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray his grace is filling you with joy and peace.
We write to you with gratefulness to God for your life and ministry. As pastors and as the
Leadership Team of Sovereign Grace churches, we have benefited from your insights
into God’s Word for many decades. Thank you for your labors in the Word and your
evident love for the gospel of Christ. We are confident that your commentaries and
books adorn the pastoral libraries of hundreds of Sovereign Grace pastors, and thus
your wisdom and gifts are benefiting the members of every Sovereign Grace church.
We thank God for you.
Beyond your direct impact on us through your writings, we also wanted to thank you for
the impact your life and ministry had on our own Jeff Purswell. We are so grateful that
Jeff and Julie were recently able to visit you and we were delighted to hear his
affectionate report of his time with you. Following that trip, and in light of Jeff’s testimony
of the profound difference your example has made in his life, we thought we should let
you know of the monumental impact Jeff has had in our family of churches. Dr. Harris,
we want you to be encouraged at the fruit of your investment in Jeff all of those years
ago.
It is nearly impossible to overstate the theological impact Jeff has made on our
denomination. Born, as we were, in the charismatic movement of the 1970’s, we were in
need of a wise Biblical scholar to guide us safely into theological maturity and
trustworthy exegetical and hermeneutical faithfulness. Jeff has been that guiding light
for us for nearly three decades now. As the architect of our current pastor’s college, Jeff
has trained class after class of pastoral students in systematic and biblical theology. He
has taught two generations of pastors how to faithfully exposit the word. He has been
almost singularly responsible for the fact that Sovereign Grace preachers are dedicated
to expositional preaching Sunday after Sunday. Surely every preacher in Sovereign
Grace would point to Jeff as one of their greatest influences in their sermon preparation
and delivery.
Jeff was also the guiding voice behind the development and clarity of our expanded
statement of faith. In a truly astonishing highlight for our denomination, churches from
around the world voted unanimously to affirm a Confession that celebrates the inerrant
Word of God, the doctrines of God’s grace in Christ, God’s purpose for the church, our
confidence in Christ’s return and many more bold affirmations of Biblical truth. With
deference to the reformed theological giants of the past and with a passion for
faithfulness in each generation, this confession will surely be a treasure for our pastors
and members for generations to come. We praise God for Jeff’s courage and clarity in
creating this doctrinal bastion for our churches.
Yet in all of these accomplishments, influencing hundreds of pastors and churches
around the globe, we are grateful, especially, for Jeff’s tender heart toward Christ and
toward His church. Jeff is a brilliant man, but more importantly to us, he is a humble,
affectionate, and passionate man. He has taught us that faithfulness to doctrine must go
hand in hand with a deep love for the Lord and a gentle generosity toward the people.
As much as we are grateful for his intellectual gifts, his heart has impacted Sovereign
Grace pastors in how we seek to love and lead our churches.
Perhaps it might seem strange to send a letter to you recounting our deep indebtedness
for Jeff—but according to Jeff’s own testimony, your godly example had a profound and
indelible influence on him all of those years ago. Therefore, all that he has done for us,
prodigious as it is, should in some way reflect back to the grace of God in your own life.
Dr. Harris, we thank God for Jeff, and therefore, we thank God for you.
Whatever God’s good purposes for our little family of churches—we know that He has
used you, through Jeff, to pour incredible generosity on us. We praise God for your life
and we pray that we can be faithful to the deposit of truth and example the Lord has given to us.
With affection in the Lord and much gratefulness,
The Sovereign Grace Leadership Team
I wanted read those letters because it really does speak of the influence of one man on our family of churches. And I think for any Christian, we look back historically on our lives from conversion onward and we see people who have had a deep and lasting influence in our lives. And Murray Harris has impacted not only me individually, but also Jeff and Julie; obviously, he has impacted hundreds in our family of churches.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. Well, we certainly do thank God for Jeff and that means that we should rightly thank God for Murray Harris as well. Just like that wonderful letter put it. So thanks for your thoughts and for sharing that story with us. If you haven't checked out Murray Harris before, if you haven't read Slave for Christ, well, you’ve got something to look forward to, and I would suggest hopping on Amazon immediately and grabbing a copy of that or any of his other works, which are all excellent. The ones I've read certainly are. So thank you, Mark, for sharing that story with us. Thank you all for checking out the podcast and we'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.