John MacArthur Calls out Ministry for Criticizing Him During COVID Lockdowns: ‘What are you Talking About? We Fight EVERY Battle’

Staff Writer

During yesterday’s Q&A Chapel service, John MacArthur addressed the question of courage in the face of adversarial circumstances. He utilized the COVID church lockdowns and talked about the flack and pushback he received from 9Marks ministry. He referred to a July 2020 article by Jonathan Leeman, who cautioned churches not to follow Grace Community Church’s footsteps of insisting that churches remain open. 

Specifically, he called out the advice that the Church should not push back so hard and save their ammunition for bigger battles, with MacArthur retorting that every instance that attacks the church is worth going to the mat for.

I was saying to somebody the other day who said ‘you’re courageous, you fight these battles’ and I said, well, that’s not what it is. It’s not about courage. When when we stayed open (during) COVID, some of the guys at 9Marks wrote an article criticizing me, criticizing Grace Church. They said you know, you’re wasting your ammunition on a minor detail. Why are you fighting this battle? This COVID battle, lockdown, close the church battle. Why don’t you wait for a bigger battle like homosexuality or something?

And my response was ‘What are you talking about? We fight EVERY battle.’ It doesn’t matter what it is. Anything that attacks the church we rise up to defend her. This isn’t about evaluating the attack and trying to figure out whether it’s a three or a six, or an eight, then decide what you’re going to do about it. This is about FIDELITY.

And sometimes what might appear to be a kind of a one on a scale of 1 to 10 is still an assault on the church and on the truth. So it isn’t that we all of a sudden become courageous when we face some kind of large scale attack, it’s that we just keep doing exactly what we’ve done all along, no matter what comes and what goes.

It’s, you know, being a steward and being faithful. So I think the defining reality of my ministry, and it should be, it is of course the mandate for all of you as well, and everybody else. The defining reality is how do you handle the word of God in your teaching and preaching and living?