What did it feel like for you having closed the church in March of 2020 to a unanimous decision to reopen in July of 2020 in defiance of Governor Gavin Newsom's orders?

If you're being told that people are going to die in the streets and you're going to kill your congregation and kill your grandma and kill your wife,

you might want to slow down and think about it a little bit. But as soon as we knew, that was not true and that we were being lied to, then it was just a matter of being faithful.

And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon B podcast.

Welcome to the Babylon B interview show. This is a huge day for us. I'm Sam Greer.

I've been known to around these parts at the Babylon B pitch a headline or host an interview or write an article in my day.

We're here with a very special guest. Pastor John MacArthur, you might know as an author. You might know him as a gentleman who's pastored the same church for over 50 years

and preached through the entire New Testament at a rate of on average five verses a week that's slow and thorough. Finally, Pastor John, you might know as the man who wrote the Bible.

Thank you for joining us.

It's my pleasure. Thank you. Now you didn't write the Bible, but what was it like to be there with the gentleman who did write the Bible?

Yeah, you know, that was the real issue with me when they when they said we'd like you to do a study Bible.

I had to get over the hurdle of putting my words in God's word, even at the bottom of the page. That was a stretch for me.

It wasn't until I was given a Geneva Bible from the 17th century and saw that they had study Bibles to help people understand the word.

So for at least a few hundred years, I was in good company. You're in good company. And of course you presented over the legacy standard Bible, which is going to be a huge component of your legacy.

Right. That was just making sure that we had a good translation because translations are tending toward, I guess you could say the reader.

In other words, there's a concern about the reader and so you change the language when translation by definition has to be about the writer.

And once you shift from the writer to the reader, you have walked away from the authorial intent of the text of Scripture.

So I was trying to yank the chain a little bit and say, let's go back and what would we what would we have as a translation if we went right back to the author and took what God gave the inspired author.

And that's what the legacy is.

We're going to talk about parts of your legacy, but today will be a rather focused conversation.

The essential church is the new documentary from Grace Productions. It comes out on July 28th in theaters.

I'm telling you this news for the first time. You know probably that we had already closed AMC and regal. What you might not know is that we were at 72 theaters yesterday as of today, 150.

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