John MacArthur was arguably the preeminent voice among Bible-believing evangelicals over the last century. His recent death caused me to reflect on his tremendous influence on my life.

I was a student at a small fundamental Baptist Bible college in the Los Angeles area many years ago. While generally sound in doctrine, the school was lacking in academics. I came to faith and was baptized as a boy in a small church, located in a barely lower middle-class Denver-area town, a church which was sound doctrinally but never was in any sense dynamic. We left that church when I was maybe sixteen and attended first one and then another church that similarly were sound in belief but were otherwise deficient. I was familiar with mediocrity.

One Sunday early in my third year at the college, I and a couple of friends drove across town to John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church. I had read one book by MacArthur but was not very familiar with his ministry. Attending Grace Church that Sunday was perhaps the most transformative event of my Christian experience. This was church. This was the message, the methodology, the New Testament pattern expressed in a modern American setting. Exciting, dynamic, in no way mediocre. We went back once or twice before the end of the school year. Over the years, I have listened to hundreds of recorded sermons by John MacArthur and have read many of his books. Though I live in Colorado, I returned to Grace Church a few times over the years.

John MacArthur was not a great orator. He was not entertaining. He was, rather, captivating for the hearer with any sort of spiritual hunger. He did not appeal to emotion. He used few illustrations or told few personal stories. A couple of years ago, alone on a road trip, I took three CD’s each containing one of his sermons to listen to. I recall hearing one illustration from his own experience, and it tied perfectly to the point he was making. He simply expanded the Bible, explaining scripture with scripture. He was a consistent defender of truth and an outspoken critic of anything that deviated from the truth.

One finds Grace Church very much as it was on my first visit there, unaffected by the various trends that plague American evangelicalism. The music in a service is doctrinal, joyful, and reverent, and the lesson or sermon is rooted directly in scripture. There are and never have been any gimmicks, fads, or entertainment.

One of the early sermon series to which I listened was MacArthur’s series preaching through Ephesians, a series of more than sixty messages. The phrases “equip the saints to do the work of the ministry” and “speak the truth in love” stand out in my memory from those messages. His formula was simple. Absolute fidelity to scripture. Preach and teach the scripture. Expound, interpret, and apply. Equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. Just what the Apostle Paul exhorted.

There is much we should learn from the ministry of John MacArthur, a faithful man who studied to “show himself approved” and who “preach(ed) the Word.”  Pastors would be wise to follow his pattern. Christians who read and listen to his material will surely find themselves “equipped.”  What he accomplished he did not do alone. His voluminous writing required much assistance. Grace Church is what it is because of countless ordinary individuals who faithfully did “the work of the ministry.”  Christians would do well to attach to a faithful ministry and faithfully support it.