Epitaph for an Expositor

Here's how Hughes Oliphant Old, a Christian historian, summed up John MacArthur's ministry in his recent book The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church:

Why do so many people listen to MacArthur, this product of all the wrong schools? How can he pack out a church on Sunday morning in an age in which church attendance has seriously lagged? Here is a preacher who has nothing in the way of a winning personality, good looks, or charm. Here is a preacher who offers us nothing in the way of sophisticated homiletical packaging. No one would suggest that he is a master of the art of oratory. What he seems to have is a witness to true authority. He recognizes in Scripture the Word of God, and when he preaches, it is Scripture that one hears. It is not that the words of John MacArthur are so interesting as it is that the Word of God is of surpassing interest. That is why one listens.

I don't know about you or your pastor, but that's the kind of preacher I'd like to sit under. That's the kind of preacher I'd like to be!

(http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/04/preaching-of-john-macarthur.html)