John MacArthur: Bio

John MacArthur is the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, as well as an author, conference speaker, president of The Master's College and Seminary, and featured teacher on radio and television with the Grace to You media ministry.

In 1969, after graduating with honors from Talbot Theological Seminary, John came to Grace Community Church. The emphasis on 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 3,000-seat auditorium to capacity. Several thousand members also participate each 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.

In 1985, John became president of The Master's College (formerly Los Angeles Baptist College), a regionally accredited, four-year liberal arts Christian college in Santa Clarita, California. In 1986, John founded The Master's Seminary, a graduate school dedicated to training men for full-time pastoral roles and missionary work.

John is also president and featured teacher with Grace to You. Founded in 1969 Grace to You is the nonprofit organization responsible for developing, producing, and distributing John's books, audio messages, and the "Grace to You" radio and television programs. "Grace to You" airs nearly 1,000 times daily throughout the English-speaking world, reaching all major population centers in the United States, as well as Australia, Canada, Europe, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Africa. It also airs more than 900 times daily in Spanish, reaching 23 countries, including Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and Columbia. In its four-decade history, Grace to You has also distributed more than 13 million audiocassette tapes and CDs, and more than one hundred study guide titles. In 2006, "Grace to You" television launched a weekly telecast, which can be seen nationwide on DirecTV and major cable outlets across the US. The program is also broadcast via satellite in the UK and may be viewd worldwide via the Internet at www.gty.org.

Since completing his first best-selling book The Gospel According to Jesus, in 1988, John has written many books such as: The MacArthur Study Bible, Our Sufficiency in Christ, Charismatic Chaos, Twelve Ordinary Men, Saved Without a Doubt, Ashamed of the Gospel, and The MacArthur New Testament Commentary series. His newest releases are, The Truth War, Because the Time is Near and A Tale of Two Sons. Many of John's books are available on CD-ROM and dozens of titles have been translated into several languages, including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Marathi, Polish, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish.

John and his wife, Patricia, live in Southern California and have four grown children: Matt, Marcy, Mark, and Melinda. They also enjoy the enthusiastic company of their fourteen grandchildren--Johnny, Ty, Jessy, KD, Olivia, Susannah, Gracie, Kylee, Andrew, Brooke, Elizabeth, Tommy, Audrey, and Oliver.