Yesterday on Things Unseen, I mentioned Room C37. My study bedroom in the University Hall

of Residence I lived in during my second year at university. It's one of the sacred

places in my memory. And we've been thinking this week about places that God has sanctified

to us because of what happened there. And I've been mentioning some of them in my own

life because I hope it will encourage you to count your blessings as well.

Actually, Room C37 has a part to play in this next memory. I was sitting in it with a group

of fellow students from our university group or chapter. And we were discussing the teaching

syllabus for the next academic year. And our president said, Professor John Murray is retiring

from Westminster Seminary. And we can ask him to speak next session. I still recall my reaction.

Who on earth is Professor John Murray? And where on earth is Westminster Theological Seminary?

Fast forward another 15 years. And I found myself standing exactly where Professor Murray had stood,

lecturing on the same subjects he had taught. And belonging to a theological faculty half of whose

members had studied with him. I found it one of the most difficult decisions of my life to accept

an invitation to join the faculty because it was in the United States and not in Scotland. And

it meant leaving the place and the people I called home. And it had taken about a year and a half

from the president's first approach to me for us eventually to arrive in Philadelphia. And that

wasn't the end of God's strange providences in our lives. But earlier, when I was a student and

had had Professor Murray, I remember thinking it would be amazing to study at Westminster Seminary.

The books written by the faculty had been enormously helpful to me. There seemed to be giants in

that particular land in those days gifted scholars who were also valiant for the faith of Jesus Christ,

men who had made great personal sacrifices and had shaped an institution that was now shaping many

others. But as a student, I was as likely to go to the United States to study theology at Westminster

...