Renowned preacher, theologian John MacArthur dies

John MacArthur, the popular pastor, author, and seminary president whose passion for “unleashing God’s truth, one verse at a time” grew into a worldwide teaching ministry, died Monday. He was 86 years old.

The Los Angeles native was the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif., from 1969 until the time of his death. Biographer Iain Murray wrote that MacArthur’s ambition was to minister the Word of God to the end of his life: “In his phrase, ‘to die with his boots on.’” MacArthur battled several bouts of illness over the past year. He died after being hospitalized with pneumonia.

Burton Michaelson remembered when he and other elders considered the young preacher for his first and only pastorate: MacArthur wanted 30 study hours each week. “We didn’t understand that, but we had confidence in him,” Michaelson noted years later.

In 1977, MacArthur’s ministry flourished when Baltimore’s WRBS-AM became the first radio station to broadcast his preaching. He described it as “the Lord’s perfect timing,” explaining that Grace to You hit the airwaves when believers across the nation were starved of Bible teaching.

The programs reached listeners in Ecuador, where missionary Florence Judd served as a nurse. Once, she canoed to a remote tribe and was surprised to find Domingo, a headman, listening to MacArthur in Spanish. “I wouldn’t have known it,” she said, “except that the Gracia a Vosotros theme tune was playing.”

A Talbot Theological Seminary graduate, MacArthur produced nearly 400 books and study guides, including The MacArthur Study Bible, which has sold more than 4 million copies, according to Amazon. Some of his works were controversial.

“I really did not expect to fight the battles I have fought,” the fifth-generation pastor acknowledged. “I never thought I would spend most of my life on the broader evangelical front defending the gospel and sound doctrine.”

In a 2007 interview, MacArthur emphasized he had always concentrated on the depth of his ministry: “God will take care of the breadth of it.”

MacArthur’s wife, Patricia, four children, 15 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren survive him.