Q&A on the LSB Translation
Shepherds Conference 2022
Sermons in this series
31 Messages
The mission of Shepherds Conference is to provide the opportunity for men in church leadership to be challenged in their commitment to biblical ministry and to find encouragement as together we seek to become more effective servants of our chief Shepherd.
Visit shepherdsconference.org for more information.
John MacArthur is the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church, 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.
In 1985, John became president of The Master's University (formerly Los Angeles Baptist College), an 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 resources, and the “Grace to You” radio and television programs. “Grace to You” radio airs more than 1,000 times daily throughout the English-speaking world, reaching major population centers on every continent of the world. It also airs nearly 1,000 times daily in Spanish, reaching 23 countries from Europe to Latin America. “Grace to You” television airs weekly on DirecTV in the United States, and is available for free on the Internet worldwide. All of John's 3,000 sermons, spanning more than four decades of ministry, are available for free on the Grace to You website.
Since completing his first best-selling book The Gospel According to Jesus in 1988, John has written nearly 400 books and study guides, including Our Sufficiency in Christ, Strange Fire, Ashamed of the Gospel, The Murder of Jesus, A Tale of Two Sons, Twelve Ordinary Men, The Truth War, The Jesus You Can't Ignore, Slave, One Perfect Life, and The MacArthur New Testament Commentary series. John's titles have been translated into more than two dozen languages. The MacArthur Study Bible, the cornerstone resource of his ministry, is available in English (NKJ, NAS, and ESV), Spanish, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, and Chinese.
John and his wife, Patricia, live in Southern California and have four married children: Matt, Marcy, Mark, and Melinda. They also enjoy the enthusiastic company of their fifteen grandchildren.
Joe was born in Russia, but in 1990 his family immigrated to the U.S. and joined Grace Community Church soon after. In his pursuit of education, Joe earned a B.A. in English and Russian literature, an M.Div. in Bible, a Th.M. in Old Testament, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible. In 2016, Joe became an associate professor of Old Testament at The Master’s Seminary, teaching Hebrew and Aramaic as well as exegesis courses, such as “The Messiah in the Old Testament.” At Grace Church, he serves in Foundation Bible study on Fridays and in the Sojourners fellowship group on Sunday mornings.
After pastoring a church for seven years in Pennsylvania, Will came to The Master’s University in 1996 to teach Old Testament Studies as well as higher divisions of biblical languages. He also has directed the IBEX (Israel Bible Extension) program at TMU and has taken more than fifty trips to the land of Israel. In 1998, Will began serving as a shepherd for the Sojourners fellowship group, where he taught through the Old Testament four times and led five groups from the class to Israel and other European countries.
Dr. Varner earned his M.Div. and Th.M. from the Biblical Theological Seminary. Additionally, he received a master’s degree in Jewish studies from Dropsie College and holds a Doctorate in Education from Temple University. He has authored more than a dozen books, including The Chariot of Israel, Jacob’s Dozen, and Awake O Harp, as well as his recent book, Passionate about the Passion Week. Will and his wife, Helen, have two grown children and one with the Lord, as well as four grandchildren.
Paul Twiss is the teaching pastor at Bethany Bible Church in Thousand Oaks, California and serves as Assistant Professor of Bible Exposition at The Master’s Seminary.
Mark grew up in Russia until 1990, when his family immigrated to Los Angeles and joined Grace Community Church. Having grown up at Grace, it was natural for him to prepare for ministry at The Master's Seminary, where he earned his M.Div. and Th.M. degrees. In 2017, Mark earned his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. Mark joined the church staff in 2007 and currently serves in church administration and leads the young professionals ministry, Foundation.
Jason Beals is a Bible professor at The Master’s University and a member of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in systematic theology. Previously, he served for fourteen years as the college and missions pastor at Church of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. Jason is a graduate of both The Master’s University and Seminary.