Andrew Murray was a South African writer, teacher, and Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 pastor

Pastor

The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....

. Murray considered missions to be "the chief end of the church."

Early life and education

Andrew Murray was the second child of Andrew Murray Sr. (1794–1866), a Dutch Reformed Church

Dutch Reformed Church

The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...

 missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 sent from Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 to South Africa. Andrew Murray was born in Graaff Reinet

Graaff Reinet

Graaff-Reinet is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the fourth oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam.-History:...

, South Africa. His mother, Maria Susanna Stegmann, was of French Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

 and German Lutheran descent.

Andrew was sent to Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

 in Scotland for his initial education together with his elder brother, John. Both remained there until they obtained their master's degree

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

s in 1845. From there, they both went to the University of Utrecht where they studied theology. The two brothers became members of Het Réveil, a religious revival movement opposed to the rationalism which was in vogue in the Netherlands at that time. Both brothers were ordained by the Hague Committee of the Dutch Reformed Church on May 9, 1848 and returned to the Cape.

Murray married Emma Rutherford in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 2, 1856. They had eight children together (four boys and four girls).

Religious work in South Africa

Andrew pastored churches in Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...

, Worcester

Worcester, Western Cape

Worcester is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. It is located 120 km north-east of Cape Town on the N1 highway north to Johannesburg....

, Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 and Wellington

Wellington, Western Cape

Wellington is a town in the Western Cape Winelands 45 minutes from Cape Town, in South Africa with a population of approximately 58,300. Wellington's economy is centered around agriculture such as wine, table grapes, citrus fruit and a brandy industry. The town is located 75 km north-east of...

, all in South Africa. He was a champion of the South African Revival of 1860.

In 1889, he was one of the founders of the South African General Mission (SAGM), along with Martha Osborn and Spencer Walton. After Martha Osborn married George Howe, they formed the South East Africa General Mission (SEAGM) in 1891. SAGM and SEAGM merged in 1894. Because its ministry had spread into other African countries, the mission's name was changed to Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF) in 1965. AEF joined with SIM

Serving In Mission

SIM is an international, interdenominational Christian mission organization. It was established in 1893 by its three founders, Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham of Canada and Thomas Kent of the United States....

 in 1998 and continues to this day.

He died on January 18, 1917, four months before his eighty-ninth birthday. Over the years he has influenced many, including Jessie Penn-Lewis

Jessie Penn-Lewis

Jessie Penn-Lewis was a Welsh evangelical speaker and author of a number of Christian evangelical works.-Early life:Penn-Lewis was born in Victoria Terrace, Neath in 1861. Her father was a Methodist minister...

, a key figure in the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival

1904-1905 Welsh Revival

The Welsh Revival was the largest Christian revival in Wales during the 20th century. While by no means the best known of revivals, it was one of the most dramatic in terms of its effect on the population, and it had repercussions that reached far beyond the Welsh border, triggering a series of...

.
His writings have greatly influenced the writings of both Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee was a Chinese Christian author and church leader during the early 20th century. He spent the last 20 years of his life in prison and was severely persecuted by the Communists in China. Together with Wangzai, Zhou-An Lee, Shang-Jie Song, and others, Nee founded The Church Assembly...

 and Witness Lee

Witness Lee

Witness Lee was a Chinese Christian preacher associated with the Local Churches movement, and the founder of the Living Stream Ministry. He was born in the city of Yantai, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a born again Christian in 1925 after hearing the...

.

Works

Murray authored over 240 books, including:

• Abide in Christ
• Absolute Surrender
• Be Perfect
• Divine Healing
• God's Will: Our Dwelling Place
• How to Raise Your Children for Christ
• Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness
• Let Us Draw Nigh
• Like Christ
• Money
• The Deeper Christian Life
• The Lord's Table
• The Holiest of All: An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews
• The Master's Indwelling
• The Ministry of Intercession
• The Power of the Blood of Christ
• The Prayer Life
• The Spirit of Christ
• The True Vine
• The Two Covenants
• Thy Will Be Done
• Waiting on God
• With Christ in the School of Obedience
• With Christ in the School of Prayer
• Working for God!
• Humility & Absolute Surrender

External links

• Works by Andrew Murray at CCEL
• Works by Andrew Murray at Librivox
  LibriVox
  LibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers and is probably, since 2007, the world's most prolific audiobook publisher...
  
   (Audiobooks)
• World Invisible Online Library Includes many Murray books
• Path2Prayer "has a collection of 40 Murray books in pdf form"
• Short Bio from The Healing and Revival Press
• Short Bio from the Wellington Museum
• Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington, South Africa
• Andrew Murray Bible School in South Africa