John MacArthur was the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church from 1969 to 2025, as well as an author, conference speaker, chancellor of The Master's University and Seminary, and featured teacher with the Grace to You media ministry.
In 1969, after graduating from Talbot Theological Seminary, John came to Grace Community Church. The emphasis of his pulpit ministry is the careful study and verse-by-verse exposition of the Bible, with special attention devoted to the historical and grammatical background behind each passage. Under John's leadership, Grace Community Church's two morning worship services fill the 3,500-seat auditorium to capacity. Several thousand members participate every week in dozens of fellowship groups and training programs, most led by lay leaders and each dedicated to equipping members for ministry on local, national, and international levels.
From John’s earliest days at Grace Church, his sermons were recorded for the sake of homebound church members. Eventually those recordings made it onto Christian radio, and the ministry of Grace to You was born. Today the sun never sets on John MacArthur’s preaching, as the Grace to You radio broadcast airs around the globe in both English and Spanish. His full sermon library is available for free download on the Grace to You website.
In 1985, John became president of what is now known as The Master's University (formerly Los Angeles Baptist College, then The Master’s College until 2016). Located in Santa Clarita, California, it is a distinctly Christian, accredited, liberal arts institution offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Through the decades under John’s leadership—first as president, then as chancellor, the University developed into one of the premier academic institutes in the country, equipping thousands of young men and women for the work of God’s kingdom with an education grounded in His Word.
When John came to Grace Church, he told the elders he wanted to do two things: preach the Word of God and train up other men to do likewise. To that end, in 1986, he founded The Master's Seminary, a graduate school on the campus of Grace Community Church dedicated to training expositors for full-time pastoral and missionary work. To date, the school has graduated more than two thousand men who are faithfully ministering across the United States and in almost seventy other countries around the world.
Much of that global work takes place through another ministry that John has helped establish and lead, The Master’s Academy International. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a group of Ukrainian pastors requested John’s help in withstanding the flood of false doctrine that was sweeping into the country. In 1991, graduates from The Master’s Seminary began training pastors in the Ukraine. Nearly thirty-five years later, more than nine hundred pastors across the country have been trained. That school, which continues to this day, became the model for what would become The Master’s Academy International. Officially founded in 2004, there are currently nineteen member schools operating all around the globe, with plans to add several more in the coming years.
John’s faithfulness in the pulpit also resulted in a prolific writing ministry. Since completing his first best-selling book The Gospel According to Jesus in 1988, John wrote nearly 400 books and study guides including Our Sufficiency in Christ, Ashamed of the Gospel, Twelve Ordinary Men, The Jesus You Can't Ignore, The Truth War, The Vanishing Conscience, Strange Fire, The War on Children, a systematic theology entitled Biblical Doctrine, and many more were the products of John’s verse-by-verse Bible teaching. In 2015, John completed The MacArthur New Testament Commentary series—thirty-four volumes covering every verse of the New Testament. Without a doubt, the cornerstone resource of John’s ministry is The MacArthur Study Bible, which provides nearly 25,000 study notes to help readers better understand what Scripture says and means. First published in 1997, it is now available in several English translations, as well as Spanish, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, and Chinese.
Through the years, many individuals have approached John with a desire to support these ministries in their areas of greatest need. In response to this growing request, the John MacArthur Charitable Trust was formed in 2017 with the sole purpose of providing support for the ongoing and expanding work to the MacArthur family of ministries.
In God’s providence, all of that—and much more—has been the direct result of John MacArthur’s pulpit ministry. As he often said, it was beyond anything he could have ever planned or schemed to create on his own. He focused on the depth of the ministry and left the breadth of it to God. “Faithfulness,” he said, “is its own reward.” Only heaven will fully reveal the rich harvest God has brought forth through the faithfulness of John MacArthur.
On July 14, 2025, Pastor John MacArthur’s faith became sight, as he entered into the eternal presence of his Savior. He had been dealing with some significant health challenges dating back to early 2023, and God, in His perfect wisdom, determined that John had completed his earthly ministry. John is survived by his wife Patricia, his children Matt, Marcy, Mark, and Melinda, and their spouses, along with fifteen grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. He was eighty-six years old.
