J. Vernon McGee (1904-1988) Thru the Bible

John Vernon Mcgee was an American ordained Presbyterian minister, pastor , Bible teacher, theologian and radio minister. He is remembered particularly for his Thru the Bible radio and television programs.

He was born in Hillsboro on 17th June 1904 to itinerant parents. John. his father. died from a cotton gin accident when he was 14. On his death the family relocated to Tennessee.

He worked as a bank teller before entering the ministry.
He earned a B.Div degree from Columbia Theological Seminary.
He earned Th.M and Th.D. from Dallas Theological seminary.
His former bank manager paid for his education through seminary…

18th June 1933 he was ordained at the Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee

John’s first church was in midway, Georgia. he then served Presbyterian churches in Decatur, Georgia; Nashville, Tennessee; Cleburne, Texas.

In Cleburne he met and later married Ruth Inez Jordan. In 1941 they moved to Pasadena, California when he accepted the pastorate at Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian (LAP) church. They had 2 children , both girls. The first baby was born prematurely and died within hours of being born.

It was at LAP he started radio broadcastings with Open Bible Hour a one hour weekly program. In 1949 it was expanded to a daily half-hour slot and renamed High Noon Bible Class,

He became pastor of the Church of the Open Door (COD) in Los Angeles (LA) in 1949 and stayed until he retired in 1970.

In 1949 he worked with Billy Graham at Christ for Greater LA Campaign.

In 1952 he was asked by John Brown, owner of KGER radio station ( now KLTX), to take over a radio program started in 1950 by Harry Rimmer -listeners would send in questions what were answered on he air.

1967, about 20 years after he first started to broadcast, John began broadcasting the Thru the Bible Radio Network program. In a systematic study of each book of the Bible he took his listeners from Genesis to Revelations in a 2.5 year ‘Bible bus tour’ as he called it. He had earlier preached a ‘Through the Bible in a Year’ at COD.

When he retired in 1970 he devoted his remaining 18 years to the TBB Radio network, lecturing & chairman of Bible Institute LA .

He realised that 2.5 years was not long enough to teach the whole Bible so he completed another study of the entire Bible which would take his listeners 5 years to complete.

Today (TTB) is aired in 100 languages and broadcast to the world every weekday. The continued success of the long running TTB program has been attributed to his oratorical abilities, folksy manner, distinctive accent, as well as his insistence on maintaining the original mission, which was to spread the Scriptures with consistency of message.
Today pastors and follow-up teams in over 160 countries are using the TTB materials in serving their people’s spiritual needs.

1st December 1988 he *fell asleep in his chair and quietly passed into the presence pf his Savior. *

Source
TTB