John MacArthur, the influential American pastor who popularized expository preaching within the fashionable period and whose Grace to You ministry unfold the gospel world wide, died July 14th following a battle with pneumonia. He was 86. MacArthur took the function as pastor of Grace Neighborhood Church in Solar Valley, Calif., in 1969, with little fanfare, however inside a couple of years turned recognized to Christians throughout America due to a rising tape ministry after which, in 1977, to listeners in Baltimore, Md., when an area radio station aired considered one of his sermons — the primary station outdoors his area to take action. Christian radio was rising, and MacArthur’s clear, verse-by-verse educating discovered an keen viewers hungry for doctrinal depth and biblical readability.
Within the early Nineteen Eighties, Grace to You turned a self-sustaining nonprofit group and later acquired its personal constructing. The Grace to You radio broadcast airs over 1,000 occasions every day throughout the English-speaking world, reaching main cities on each continent. Its Spanish-language model additionally broadcasts almost 1,000 occasions every day, masking 23 nations throughout Europe and Latin America. In the meantime, MacArthur’s church continued to thrive, and in his closing years, it held two morning providers in a 3,500-seat auditorium — typically stuffed to capability every Sunday.
His books and commentaries rivaled his sermons in recognition. The MacArthur Research Bible stays one of many most-used examine Bibles on the planet. His books included The Gospel In line with Jesus (1988), The Gospel In line with the Apostles (1993), Twelve Odd Males (2002), Twelve Extraordinary Ladies (2005), Slave: The Hidden Fact About Your Id in Christ (2010), Unusual Hearth (2013), Ashamed of the Gospel (1993, up to date 2010) and Anxious for Nothing (2006). He wrote almost 400 books and examine guides, in accordance with his official bio.
He additionally based a college, The Grasp’s Seminary, in 1986. Every of his 3,000 sermons spanning 40 years can be found free of charge at GTY.org — one of many largest such collections. He preached by way of the complete New Testomony for his congregation, masking a number of the chapters and verses a number of occasions. Grace to You’s tagline turned, “Unleashing God’s Fact, One Verse at a Time.” MacArthur stated his expository sermons grew from a private need to grasp the Bible in depth.
“My preliminary aim was to not make up sermons that folks would love; my aim was to understand the New Testomony,” he stated in a private testimony posted on the ministry’s web site. “I used to be in awe, and nonetheless am, of the Bible, and notably in awe of the New Testomony — not that it’s higher, however that it’s the complete revelation, It’s the finished revelation – not higher than the Previous Testomony. However I’ve at all times been in awe of the glories of the New Testomony, and I knew that if I didn’t do expositional educating, I might by no means ever dig out all that was there. And so, mainly, it was my very own private need to grasp all the things within the New Testomony. I used to be very annoyed after I used to learn the Bible in my devotions, as a result of I didn’t know what I used to be studying. I couldn’t perceive all of it; I didn’t know the depth and breadth of it. So, I admit that I began out to undergo the entire New Testomony for a really self-centered cause, and that’s that I wished to know what it meant.”
As he grew older, his data deepened — and his tempo slowed. It took him eight years to evangelise by way of Matthew.
“My insights into the textual content obtained better and better, and so, it was tougher for me to get by way of a e-book,” he stated.
His distinctive theological mix — a Reformed Baptist with a premillennial view of the Finish Occasions — attracted followers from throughout a variety of denominations. Some aligned with him on just one side of his educating, however almost all revered his deep reverence for Scripture. Requested what he wished his legacy to be, MacArthur replied merely: “I simply actually wish to be often known as somebody who was a servant of the Lord.”
“You understand, Paul makes use of the phrase hupēretēs, a galley slave, below rower. Simply that I used to be devoted to the Phrase of God, devoted to the educating of the Phrase of God and to the unfolding of the mysteries of the gospel of the New Testomony,” he stated. “That’s — it’s not about what number of faculties or what number of books or what number of radio packages. It’s nearly being devoted to the Phrase of God.”
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Picture Credit score: ©Grace to You / SWN Design
Michael Foust has lined the intersection of religion and information for 20 years. His tales have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity As we speak, The Christian Submit, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville Information-Sentinel.
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Initially printed July 14, 2025.
