Grace Reaches Out

How Grace to You Is Taking John MacArthur’s Bible Teaching into More and More Languages Each Year.

Recently, the team at MacArthur Center for Expository Preaching (an initiative at The Master’s Seminary supported by the John MacArthur Trust) interviewed Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You. Phil has worked at Grace to You for more than 40 years and few people better understand the history of the ministry, or the ministry of John MacArthur. As Phil described some of the key points in Grace to You’s history, he told a remarkable story of how God had used technology to spread John MacArthur’s preaching across the country of Vietnam. Below is a transcript of that story, as Phil told it to the MacArthur Center team in the summer of 2023.

The Far East broadcasting company has a guy who is Vietnamese. I won't say his name because I don't want to get him in trouble with the Vietnamese government. He secretly got ahold of some of John MacArthur’s tapes. He figured it'd be easier to ask forgiveness than permission, so he didn't even tell Grace to You what he was going to do, but he translated a lot of John's teaching into Vietnamese and devised a way to distribute it even in the most remote parts of Vietnam, through these tiny little players that were sort of modified MP3 players. They were loaded with these sermons from John MacArthur translated into Vietnamese. And they've been distributing those now for more than a decade.

Our ministry’s accidental influence in Vietnam is quite remarkable. I went over there a few years ago with FEBC just to see, and they took me to a place where I had to ride a motorcycle, probably five, six miles out of the city into a remote area, and then turn off onto these little dirt paths, walking paths, go another two, three miles and then take a canoe across a river where there was this elderly woman who lived in a little tin shack that was built out of corrugated tin with her granddaughter, who was a teenager. And there was no electricity or running water in the place where they lived, but they had one of these little players, and every night they would listen to these sermons. I don't know the numbers, but I know it has totally blanketed Vietnam and the church in Vietnam. There’s nothing else like that available for them. And our partners at FEBC have done a great job of getting those distributed.

One of the things you'll often hear John say is that if a sermon only fits into one zip code, it's not going to be a biblical sermon. Scripture is written for all people and all times. It doesn't need to be made artificially to cross cultural boundaries. One of the distinctiveness of John MacArthur’s preaching ministry is that it can cross cultural boundaries because he simply teaches from the Bible. If he wants to use an illustration, he'll use a biblical illustration. So there’s not a lot of bound or culturally bound material in John sermons.

Seeing how easily Pastor John’s material was translated into Vietnamese, Grace to You decided to expand its translation efforts. The result was an initiative known as Grace Reaches Out.

Over the past ten years, Grace Reaches Out has translated hundreds of John’s sermons into some of the most-spoken languages in the world. It has become a key part of the ministry at Grace to You. The Trust recently interviewed Jeremy Smith, who oversees Grace Reaches Out. He gives a snapshot of all the Lord is doing across the globe as Pastor John’s material is made more available to the non-English speaking world.

1.) What languages are part of Grace Reaches Out (GRO)? And how many millions of people have at least some access to Pastor John's teaching because of the work of Grace Reaches Out?    

Through Gracia a Vosotros, Grace to You has been translating John MacArthur’s sermons into Spanish for many years. That work preceded our GRO initiative. In 2014, we started translating John’s sermons into four major world languages: Mandarin, Portuguese, French, and Arabic. Since then, we have launched projects in Persian, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Korean, German, and most recently, Indonesian. Those eleven languages represent the primary dialects of approximately 2 billion people worldwide. That doesn’t account for bilingual people who could access John’s teaching in English or Spanish, or those who speak one of the current GRO languages as a second language. What’s clear is that John MacArthur’s teaching is becoming available to an increasingly large portion of the globe.

2.) What are some examples of the kind of biblical content that's been translated through the work of Grace Reaches Out?

For each language, we are translating the sermon transcripts of 100 sermon series, which contain nearly 600 individual sermons. After a sermon is carefully translated and edited to ensure it is accurate and true to Pastor MacArthur’s intended sense, it’s voiced and recorded by a native speaker. These sermons are then made available, free of charge, on our website and through other media outlets. The sermon series we are translating in this initiative include “The Anatomy of the Church,” “The Fulfilled Family,” “The Gospel According to Jesus,” and many other beloved series.

The GTY translation services department has also worked together with trusted partner ministries to translate blog articles, booklets, tracts, commentaries, and other books into various languages.

3.) Why is Pastor John's material so translatable? Why does it translate so effectively into other languages?

Since the beginning of his Bible-exposition ministry over five decades ago, John MacArthur has been committed to a simple approach to preaching the Bible. He has focused on thoroughly understanding the meaning of the text and accurately communicating that meaning as clearly and deeply as possible. This approach to the study and exposition of God’s Word is founded upon a simple but profound conviction that the words of the Bible are the very words of God (2 Tim. 3:16) and that Scripture is God’s ordained means of saving and sanctifying sinners (Heb. 4:12; Ps. 19:7–14). John’s faithfulness to this conviction and to decades of labor in the study of the Bible has produced thousands of sermons that provide deep exposition of the biblical text, rather than focusing on current events, cultural trends, or theological fads. Whether John MacArthur’s sermons are heard in English or in any of the languages into which GTY is now translating them, the transformative truths and principles of God’s Word—which transcend time, culture, and language—are heard and understood.

4.) What are some current languages Grace Reaches Out is targeting and is there a goal of how many languages Grace to You would like to work with?

As mentioned above, the translation projects GTY has begun within the last year are the Korean, German, and Indonesian projects. These are still in the early stages. While we are strategically focusing on the most commonly spoken languages, we do not want to set a limit on the number of languages into which we will translate John MacArthur’s sermons and books. Rather, we will continue to fulfill our mission of extending the blessing of John’s Bible teaching into the communities, homes, and hearts of countless people across the globe with the resources and opportunities God provides