Study Habits


In May 1964 the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and those of us who were the graduating students (thirty or so men) met for a banquet, students and professors sitting informally together in an atmosphere of affection and thankfulness. One by one, the professors got up and said a few words of exhortation and encouragement. When John Murray got up he suggested that we should not slip out of the habit of studying, but rather we should seek to make our own some area in which we would read as fully and exhaustively as we could over the next years. Mr. Murray said, “There might arise an issue in the church in twenty years’ time which is directly related to what you have studied, and then you could make a valuable contribution, guiding and enlightening the church.”

From Preface, Geoffrey Thomas, The Holy Spirit, ix