John MacArthur

(American pastor-teacher, author, radio evangelist
Best known for his  Grace to You radio series)

* * *

Born |  June 19, 1939 (age 81)
Los Angeles

Los Angeles County, California

Spouse |  Patricia MacArthur

John Fullerton MacArthur Junior, (born June 19, 1939) is an American pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, which is a megachurch founded in 1956. MacArthur is also an author, editor of the MacArthur Study Bible, conference speaker, founder and president of The Master's University, a non-denominational Christian liberal arts university in Santa Clarita, California. MacArthur is also the chancellor emeritus of The Master's University in Santa Clarita, California, and The Master's Seminary in Los Angeles, California. He is known worldwide as an influential Christian leader and teacher with the syndicated Christian radio program "Grace to You" as a part of their media ministry since 1969.

MacArthur is an Evangelical Christian pastor. Theologically, MacArthur is considered a Calvinist and a strong proponent of the method of expository preaching. MacArthur has been acknowledged by the Billy Graham founded evangelical periodical magazine 'Christianity Today' as one of the most influential preachers of his time and has been a frequent guest on Larry King Live as a representative of an evangelical Christian perspective.

MacArthur has written dozens of bestselling books in more than four decades of ministry. Best-selling books of note include: “The MacArthur Study Bible", which has sold more than 1 million copies and received a Gold Medallion Book Award. "MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series" (sold more than 1 million copies), "Twelve Ordinary Men" (more than 500,000 copies), and the children's book "A Faith to Grow On", the recipient of an Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Book Award. Other best selling MacArthur books include: "Truth for Today", "The Truth War", "Hard to Believe", "The Gospel According to Jesus", "Found: God’s Will", and "Twelve Extraordinary Women".

## Contents

* 1 Family and Education
* 2 Career highlights and notes
* 3 Personal life
* 4 External Links

## Family and Education[edit]

John MacArthur is the grandson of Episcopal minister Harry MacArthur (deceased 1950) and son of Baptist preacher Jack MacArthur (born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) and Irene Dockendorf (and a fifth cousin of U.S. Army general Douglas MacArthur), MacArthur was born in Los Angeles. He was a well-known athlete in his college years, where he played football at Los Angeles Pacific College (now Azusa Pacific University). Following in his father's college footsteps, MacArthur studied the Arminian theology of John Miley and Henry Orton Wiley at two colleges: the Fundamentalist Bob Jones University from 1957 to 1959, then transferring to the Los Angeles Pacific College (now Azusa Pacific University). In 1963, MacArthur received his Masters of Divinity from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, in La Mirada, California. At Talbot, MacArthur was influenced by Dispensationalism, Amyraldism and by Dispensational Premillennialism via Dr. Charles L. Feinberg. The dean of the seminary, Feinberg, was Jewish, and after studying for 14 years to be a rabbi, was converted to Christ. This transfer from Pacific College and then on to Talbot Seminary, reflected MacArthur’s discomfort with the ‘war psychology’ of classical fundamentalism and his move toward more mainstream evangelicalism.

## Career highlights and notes[edit]

Pastor John MacArthur in 2013 with David Torres, a Masters Seminary graduate, and radio producer, after a most powerful sober sermon titled, "The Tale of Two Preachers." in California.

MacArthur began serving as an associate pastor from 1964 to 1966, at the Harry MacArthur Memorial Bible Church (now Calvary Bible Church in Burbank, California), the church his father Jack had planted and named after his own father. From 1966 to 1969, MacArthur served as a faculty representative for Talbot Theological Seminary. On February 9, 1969, he became the third pastor at the nondenominational Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California at the age of twenty-nine.

In 1977, seemingly by accident, a small number of MacArthur's "Grace to You" tapes found their way on the air in Baltimore, Maryland, and “Grace to You” radio was born. Christian radio was blossoming into a powerful, personal conduit for feeding people’s hunger for God’s Word according to MacArthur.

Soon thereafter radio not only allowed MacArthur's ministry daily access to millions of people, but it fueled demand for other resources. The Grace Community Church grew in number, notably not by the implementation of pragmatic church growth methods, but through MacArthur’s commitment to expositional preaching. Grace to You became an independent, self-funded, nonprofit company in the early 1980s and subsequently bought its own building. With growth there also came challenges; these included a painful rebellion by MacArthur’s staff (‘Black Tuesday’) and a 1980 lawsuit brought against MacArthur charging ‘clergy malpractice’ after the suicide of a church member.

MacArthur's local church ministry grew even larger via Grace Community’s acquisition of Los Angeles Bible College and its transformation to the Master’s College in 1985, with the addition of the Master’s Seminary in 1986. Essentially the local church ministry began to flourish in multiple areas including public preaching, print, and through education. Since the late 1990s MacArthur's broadcast "Grace to You" is distributed to radio stations using computer technology including online videos, and study materials derived from some broadcasts as well as messages in MP3 format via podcasts.

MacArthur is very open about opposing same-sex marriage and the social justice movement. Particularly leading up to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court law, which seemingly with ease, struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, then legalized it. MacArthur like many other Christian pastors who view the biblical view of marriage between a man and women, has delivered numerous sermons where he discusses these issues, stating "As a Christian, you must not compromise what the Bible says about homosexuality – ever. Your first sympathies belong to the Lord and to the exaltation of his righteousness. Homosexuals stand in defiant rebellion against the will of their Creator who from the beginning "made them male and female" (Matthew 19:4).

## Personal life[edit]

MacArthur is married to his wife, Patricia and together they have four children and fifteen grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild as of 2017.

## External Links[edit]

* Grace Community Church - Senior Pastor John MacArthur
* Grace to You - MacArthur's sermons (audio and text) available for download