My preaching hero has passed into the presence of the Lord. John F. MacArthur (1939-2025), faithful pastor for 56 years of Grace Community Church in Southern California, gained his heavenly reward this past Monday, July 14, after battling complications from pneumonia and additional recent physical difficulties. Rarely do I publicly respond to the passing of significant gospel personalities; this one is different for me, and likely many of you.

For more than 40 years, I have been significantly influenced by the ministry of John MacArthur. It is safe to say that no other single individual has had more impact on my approach to preaching and much of my theology than he has. He is my preaching hero.

I believe it is also accurate to say that no other single individual has had a greater or longer lasting influence on the evangelical culture than John MacArthur. Many pastors and authors rise to popularity but within a decade or two, they typically fade off the scene or pass into obscurity through moral failure. Many modern pastors fill their preaching with so many cultural emphases, that their ministry and influence quickly wane. John MacArthur’s ministry spanned almost six decades. Because his preaching was fixated on explaining the meaning of the biblical text through consecutive exposition in his local church, his preaching and writing ministry will likely impact generations beyond his lifetime.

I remember my first encounter with the preaching ministry of MacArthur. I was in high school, driving to a school event, searching for something to listen to on the radio. I came across a man teaching through the trials and crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Having been a Christian for only a few years and prior to hearing MacArthur’s preaching, I wondered why most of the pastors I was exposed to did not simply explain the meaning of the Bible verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter and book-by-book. Hearing MacArthur on the radio was my first exposure to such preaching, and I was instantly hooked. I began tape recording his radio messages every day and outlining them when I came home at night. I purchased study guides containing the written content of his sermons and eagerly digested them. In 1988, I purchased John’s new book, The Gospel According to Jesus and devoured it. That book helped me to discern when my own conversion to Christ occurred. It also helped put into perspective what I was seeing in my church and evangelical experience; it was foundational to my Christian life and eventual pastoral ministry.

When I began pastoral ministry in rural Texas, before any seminary education, I longed for a way to gain more training and exposure to John’s ministry. Through a prior publication of John’s media ministry, Grace to You (“Masterpiece” magazine), I learned of the Shepherds’ Conference. I photo-copied the advertisement and thumbtacked it to a bulletin board in my office and prayed each day that the Lord would provide me an opportunity to attend. The Lord answered. I attended my first conference in 1991. I vividly remember standing outside the Worship Center of Grace Church listening to the choir rehearse for the Friday evening service and thinking to myself, “we are being exposed to the Charles Spurgeon of our generation.” That was the first of many years of Shepherds’ Conferences I would attend. I still have many cassette tapes from many of the messages. They were part of my ministry diet throughout the year until I could attend another conference.

While at the Shepherds’ Conferences, I was also exposed to The Master’s Seminary. I would pick up syllabi and related books and use them to study during the year as a means of educating myself for ministry. That is, until I recognized I had reached a point in my pastoral development where I knew I needed more intense and focused education. I began praying that the Lord would allow me to attend The Master’s Seminary. At that time in the mid to late 1990s, I did not know of another seminary in the country that was devoted to training men in the art and science of Bible exposition like TMS. What I did not know was that a few of my church members were also praying that God would give me the grace and wisdom to let go of shepherding that small Texas congregation to go to seminary at TMS. In 1997, those prayers were answered. I packed up all I owned into a small U-Hall and drove to Southern California to begin attending The Master’s Seminary. My time there did not disappoint. To this day, I still lean on the training I received there in how to exegete and exposit the Bible. Professors and pastors from my time there remain constant companions in my conscience as I study every week; all urging me to be faithful to the text as it is revealed. All of this was a result of John MacArthur’s preaching ministry.

In seminary, I had the opportunity to work on staff at Grace Church, where I met and was exposed to men who had been directly discipled by John MacArthur. Unknown to me at the time was how these acquaintances would become ministry shaping friendships that last to this day, continuing to help me grow deeper in biblical local church ministry; such as Rick Holland, Jerry Wragg, Lance Quinn, Matt Waymeyer, and many more.

While I was studying at TMS, the Lord was also shaping and directing a young woman who had recently been exposed to John’s preaching ministry. She also was looking for solid Bible teaching and found it at Grace Church; a mega church only miles away from where she lived and grew up, but of which she had never heard. The Lord, through a Bible study taught by a TMS student and acquaintance of mine, exposed Kelly Rodgers to an accurate understanding of the Scriptures. She left the seeker driven church she attended and joined Grace Church. Eventually she was employed at Grace To You, and when we were introduced through a seminary professor of mine who had been discipling her, she was serving as John MacArthur’s and Phil Johnson’s executive assistant. The Lord not only used John’s preaching ministry to draw me from rural Texas to Southern California, but He used it to draw a Southern Californian to Grace Church and us to one another. Kelly and I were married in 2001, just after we both graduated from The Master’s University and The Master’s Seminary respectively.

But it was also through the extended influence of John MacArthur that I came to Summit Woods Baptist Church. After a three-year pastorate in north Los Angeles and then an eight-year pastorate alongside fellow TMS graduates, the Lord’s providence saw fit to move me to the Midwest. While attending a retreat with like-minded pastors in 2010, I asked for prayer, knowing that the Lord was ending my ministry at the church I was serving. While entering an elevator to go to my hotel room, a former TMS student happened to be there. He confidently told me he knew where I should look to serve in my next church ministry. He gave me a flyer he received from an elder from Summit Woods (Rob Stouffer) and said it would be a perfect fit for me. I was doubtful. What I did not know was the influence John MacArthur’s ministry was having on Summit Woods.

Years before I began serving here, the former pastor, Ryan Bowman, was leading the church in a biblical study of church eldership. As a part of that study, he took men with him to a Shepherds’ Conference where they were exposed to Grace Church and their plurality of elders. It was ground-breaking for the men attending. When it came time for the church to begin their search for a new Pastor-Teacher following Ryan’s departure to the mission field, they connected with like-minded men and ministries, one of which was The Master’s Seminary and Grace Church. In fact, the elders had narrowed their search to two potential men to begin vetting, both of which were TMS graduates, myself and a fellow seminary student who replaced me in the house I lived in when Kelly and I married.

Many in our congregation have long been impacted by the ministry of John MacArthur and the vast extent of its influence. We have taken several trips to Shepherds’ Conferences yielding significant fruit. Our members have always loved Bible exposition and MacArthur has been the premiere expositor of our generation. We continue to be shaped by the extended influence of John MacArthur. The Expositor’s Seminary was formed by former TMS alumni and like-minded pastors across the country. We have two graduates from TES and three more attending classes now. In God’s providence, nine months after I moved to Kansas City, the Lord providentially moved Rick Holland, the former Senior Associate Pastor of Grace Church, to Kansas City and we quickly connected. Rick was personally discipled by John and spent almost 30 years in ministry at Grace Church.

I could continue recounting the influences of John’s ministry in my life and that of our church. I am confident members of our church could expand on this with their own accounts of God’s blessing through John’s ministry. I am also confident that what I have written could be (and like is being) written by countless other men who have been impacted by the preaching and teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I am not aiming to exalt a mere man in what I write. I do want to provide honor where honor is due (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13). I want to give thanks to God for choosing to bestow unique blessing on John’s preaching and the local church ministry of Grace Church. We have been exposed to a once in a lifetime ministry that will not likely be replicated in terms of widespread fruitfulness and influence.

No one has shaped me, many of you, and much of the evangelical landscape like John MacArthur has. The real fruit of John MacArthur’s ministry is not found in his personality, or even the widespread influence he garnered through almost six decades of pastoral ministry. The real fruit of his ministry is found in the profound work of God’s Word. 

At his fiftieth anniversary of pastoring Grace Community Church, John preached on “The Work of the Word.” The Lord has done all the work. The Word of God through the Holy Spirit’s effectiveness is what produced the fruit. John was a faithful instrument in the Lord’s hand to accomplish His purposes. The Lord used John MacArthur uniquely as John was uniquely confident in the effective work of God’s Word. May we seek to follow Christ in a similar confident faithfulness to that of a fellow slave of Christ seen in John MacArthur (2 Corinthains 4:5).