A Seminary in Philadelphia

It was one of the hardest decisions of a young Scotsman’s life to go and teach at an American seminary. But there, God blessed him with friends. Today, Sinclair Ferguson reflects on the cherished gift of friendship.

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. 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 intervarsity 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 fifteen 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. 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 heard 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 Seminary as to go to the moon to purchase green cheese. So you can understand that finding myself there fifteen years later—and as a faculty member—was absolutely astonishing to me. Looking back, I sometimes pinch myself and think, “How did that happen?”

So, how can I not be grateful for the privilege of being taken on board, and befriended, and in the fellowship of men whose ability far exceeded my own, being recompensed for what I had lacked in my own theological education? You can imagine why the fellowship and shared ministry of faculty and staff and many shared hours with intelligent and highly motivated students from all over the world made that day in that room a very sacred memory to me, as well as make the campus a special place to me later on.

I suppose one thing that made it easy for me to make relationships with some of the students—relationships that lasted into later life—was that when I started teaching, I was about the average age of the students, so it wasn’t difficult to be mistaken for one. In many ways, we grew up together.

Perhaps like me, you are grateful, too, for the special continuing bonds that were created during your earlier years. I think especially in the Christian ministry, these bonds are absolutely essential. One reason is that often in the history of the church, it’s those bands of brothers that the Lord has used not only to sustain one another and to advance His kingdom. And although I was a faculty member, and like every decent faculty member, I was also a student learning side by side with fellow students, iron sharpening iron—professor being shaped even as he sought to be an instrument shaping others. The most important thing I think, looking back, is the bonds that created.

Sometimes men would come to my office and say to me, “Will you mentor me?” or, “Will you disciple me?” To be honest, I’ve always had reservations about some mentorship or discipleship programs because they seem to be too heavy on a kind of official teacher-student dynamic and light on what I think is actually central in the New Testament. And so, I would say: “No, I won’t mentor you, and there are several reasons for that. But here’s what I will do: I’ll be your friend.” And I think apart from all that I feel I learned academically in my years at the seminary, the thing that more than anything else I really value, that made the place a sacred space to me with memories of God’s presence and God’s blessing was this: friends. There, God gave me friends.

And that reminds me of something significant Jesus said to the disciples at the end of His ministry: “I have called you friends.” Isn’t it interesting how much friends meant to Jesus and not just disciples? So I hope that today, with me, you can be very thankful for the friends the Lord has given you.