It was a very long time ago, but I still remember the night.
I was on my way home from my girlfriend’s house during a weeknight and had tuned into one of the local Christian radio stations. At that hour, they had switched over to teaching from music, and as I was making my way onto a freeway, I heard this powerful voice kicking out a Bible message with an air of authority and strength that was unique at the time.
“Who is this guy?” I thought to myself.
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Back then, it wasn’t as easy as it is today to find that kind of stuff out, but I wasn’t giving up until I got a name. And finally, I had one: John MacArthur.
“Who is this guy?” I thought to myself again.
As a new Christian, I was soaking up the Bible and was following its advice, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). At the time, no one sent out Scripture like a bazooka as MacArthur did, so it wasn’t long before I had a stack of his books, tapes (yes, tapes, this was before the web), and tuned into him as often as I could.
It’s been 30+ years since then, and as of right now, he’s still teaching me the Bible. My primary go-to study Bible is his. Why? For one thing, unlike many study Bibles, he rarely dodges the hard passages, and I appreciate that. The hard stuff is one of the reasons we have a study Bible in the first place, right?
When I’m doing expositional study in the New Testament, his commentary set is my first stop. As long as podcasts and mp3s have been a thing, I’ve been “working out” with Mac (that and “JMac” are his best-known nicknames) at the gym, logging at least one if not two messages per session. My library has plenty of his books, and if you’ve been a regular reader of my column here at CP, you know I quote from him often in my posts.
The reason I’ve clung to him so much during my life is primarily because of what Franklin Graham posted about him on the day Mac went on to be with the Lord: “He could get more out of a Bible verse than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Truth, my friends! John Piper said the same thing in his post about Mac: “I simply stood in awe of what he could do in the pulpit with a passage of Scripture.”
Not surprisingly, Mac’s commitment to the Bible drew more than a few adversaries. In her New York Times article about Mac, Ruth Graham aptly defined him as a “theologically uncompromising pastor” — a description that naturally draws many detractors.
Speaking of Mac naysayers, perhaps you’re one of them? If so, and you can’t wait to finish this article so you can make a comment about how you think Mac was wrong on this or that topic, or want to go further and sling a little mud at him, how about you do all of us a favor?
Don’t. Just don’t.
Hard as it may be to hear, I’ve got some news for you: “now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12). This means all of us, no matter how hard we try, don’t have it 100% right when it comes to God. That includes you and me.
That being true, how about being “slow to speak” (James 1:19) when correcting a man who worked his entire life at interpreting and applying God’s Word is concerned? Remember: “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4).
Instead of punching at him, thank God for men like Mac and pray He raises up more like him: a faithful husband for 60 years, pastor at the same church for 56, and preaching God’s truth the majority of his career 5 times a week.
That last life fact is why Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said: “Evangelicalism is a pulpit-driven movement, and John has driven the most influential pulpit in Evangelical Christianity for more than half a century.”
With Tim Keller and now Mac no longer with us, I’m beginning to feel a bit like John Piper when he said, “All my best friends are dead men.” It does seem like those I turn to the most for wisdom and biblical insight are now in the presence of the One they served so well. Each time that happens, the world gets just a little darker for me.
Concerning men like Mac, the former pastor of my church was once preaching on Jesus’ parable of the talents found in Matthew 25. I remember him commenting that God, in His wisdom, creates some five-talent people, while creating others as two or one-talent persons.
When it comes to five-talent believers in our generation, John MacArthur more than qualifies. Yet, in an interview, some years back, he said: “I don’t like to offer myself as the model … I don’t want people ever to think that my life is the authority. The truth of God’s Word is the authority.”
Mac’s devotion to God’s Word and his ministry slogan of “Unleashing God’s Truth, One Verse at a Time” is why he did what he did. He can say with Paul, “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me” (Col. 1:29).
Until Heaven Mac. “Well done good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Master.”
Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master’s in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.
