After earning a Masters degree in Divinity from Talbot Theological Seminary. Macarthur served as associate pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Burbank, California before becoming pastor of the non-denominational Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in 1969.
Preaching a strict Calvinist theological message, MacArthur built the small Grace Church into a megachurch with more than 8,000 in weekly attendance by 2008. He developed the Grace to You radio ministry first as a means of distributing his sermons to a larger audience, then as a separate daily ministry program in its own right. The program has now grown to a broadcast audience including listeners in Canada, India, and all of Western Europe.
MacArthur’s theology is based in conservative Calvinism, including young-earth creationism and opposition to evolutionary theory, premillennialism (the belief that Jesus will return to Earth to usher in a thousand years of peace), dispensationalism, and the belief that acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior is a necessary precondition to eternal salvation. He has been critical of modern church movements that take a more universalist approach.
MacArthur is a prolific author with more than 150 published titles focused on Calvinist theology, bible study, and conservative parenting, including strong advocacy of corporal punishment and other aspects of authoritarian child-rearing.
MacArthur and his wife Patricia have four grown children and 15 grandchildren.
Patheos on John MacArthur
ADRIAN WARNOCKBENJAMIN L. COREY
- John MacArthur on Having Gay Children: Alienate Them & Turn Them Over to Satan
John MacArthur: The People of the Hispanic World “Don’t Know Christ”
JESUS CREED
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5/14/2018 1:21:13 PM
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