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The Whosoever Study Bible
Whosoever will, may come.
Scholar Resource

J. Vernon McGee

Notes & Outlines from THRU the BIBLE

Dr. J. Vernon McGee taught the whole Bible on the radio, book by book and verse by verse, and then arranged for the recordings to keep teaching it after he died. The Notes & Outlines on this platform are his, provided by THRU the BIBLE.

No portrait is shown. The slot above stays empty until The Word For Today’s counterpart at THRU the BIBLE supplies an approved image; using one we have not been given would be the one thing a partner page must not do.

Life

  • Born 17 June 1904 in Hillsboro, Texas, to John Gaston McGee and Carrie Belle (Lingner) McGee, itinerant and poor.TSHA; TTB
  • His father was killed in a cotton gin accident when Vernon was fourteen, and his mother moved the family to Nashville, Tennessee. He worked as a bank teller before entering ministry.TTB; WIKIPEDIA
  • Educated at Southwestern University in Memphis, then a B.Div. at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, then a Th.M. and a Th.D. at Dallas Theological Seminary.TTB; TSHA
  • Ordained in the Presbyterian Church in the United States. His first church stood on a red clay hill in Midway, Georgia. Pastorates followed in Decatur, in Nashville, and at First Presbyterian Church in Cleburne, Texas, where he met and married Ruth Inez Jordan. They had two daughters; one died in infancy.TTB; TSHA
  • In 1941 he was called to Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, California, and began broadcasting there with The Open Bible Hour, later the High Noon Bible Class.TSHA; TTB
  • In 1949 he left the denomination over its liberalism and became pastor of the interdenominational Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles, succeeding Louis T. Talbot. He served there until 1970. During those years he headed the English Bible department at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and lectured at Dallas Theological Seminary.TSHA; WIKIPEDIA
  • In 1965 he underwent cancer surgery and was given six months to live.TTB; TSHA
  • He died on 1 December 1988 in his sleep, and is buried in Pasadena. Days before his death he instructed the board to keep the recorded five-year programme on the air.WIKIPEDIA; TSHA; TTB
WHERE SOURCES DISAGREE

The 1965 operation is given as cancer surgery by THRU the BIBLE and by the Texas State Historical Association. At least one secondary account calls it heart surgery. This page follows THRU the BIBLE and records the disagreement rather than resolving it silently.

Ministry

  • THRU the BIBLE began in 1967 as a Bible Bus trip through all sixty-six books, taking two and a half years.WIKIPEDIA; TTB
  • After retiring from the pulpit in January 1970 he taught the whole Bible again over five years. That second cycle is the one still broadcast.WIKIPEDIA; TTB
  • The programme was headquartered in Pasadena. At his death it aired in thirty-four to thirty-five languages; today it is carried in more than a hundred languages across some hundred and sixty countries.WIKIPEDIA; TSHA; TTB

Doctrine, in his own words

Every line below is quoted from the THRU the BIBLE Notes & Outlines we hold, with the book and the printed page. Nothing here is inferred from his school, his pulpit, or his reputation.

Premillennial, and he says so in the first person plural.
“FUTURIST THEORY: This theory holds that the book of Revelation is primarily prophetic and yet future, especially from Revelation 4 on to the end of the book. This is the view of all premillennialists and is the view which we accept and present.”
REVELATION, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 2
Pre-tribulational: the church is removed before the crisis he places in Revelation 4 onward.
“Crisis in the Future (After removal of true church and before the coming of Christ to creation)”
REVELATION, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 9, FROM THE CHART OF THE BOOK
Dispensational in his structuring of Romans, where chapters 9 to 11 are headed as such.
“II. Dispensational, “Hope,” Chapters 9—11”
ROMANS, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 10
Election language he keeps, in Israel's case as a corporate and national choice.
“3. Choice of Israel in the sovereign purpose of God, vv. 14-24 4. Choice of Gentiles in the scriptural prophecies of God, vv. 25-33”
ROMANS, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 10
Election language he keeps, of believers, as a preserving thing rather than a restricting one.
“God’s elect cannot be permanently deceived.”
2 PETER, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 5
The same, in his notes on the same theme in another letter.
“The elect cannot permanently be deceived. Christ said it is not possible to deceive the elect.”
1 JOHN, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 12
And a free, universal offer, in the same set of notes, stated without qualification.
“From the vantage point of the world’s capital he was to preach the global gospel to a lost world—that God loved so much that He gave His son to die, that whosoever believed on Him might not perish, but have eternal life (see John 3:16).”
ROMANS, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 3
Eternal security, with the distinction he drew between the fact and the feeling of it.
“It is possible to believe in the security of the believer but lack the assurance of salvation. Security of the believer is objective. Assurance of salvation is subjective.”
2 PETER, NOTES & OUTLINES, PRINTED PAGE 4

Taken together the Notes & Outlines hold two things at once, and this page says so rather than tidying either away. He keeps the language of election, of Israel in Romans 9 and of believers who cannot be finally deceived. He also states the offer without qualification, that God gave his Son so that whosoever believed on him might not perish. Both are in the same set of notes, in his own words. He is not labelled here with a system he did not use.

AMBER, NOT PUBLISHED AS HIS WORDS
“Any man,” that’s free will; that “hath an ear” is election; and this is the way God weds these two truths together.

Widely attributed to McGee's commentary on Revelation. It is NOT in the THRU the BIBLE Notes & Outlines for Revelation, which is the volume we hold. Searched for the whole line and for each distinctive fragment (“that’s free will”, “hath an ear”, “weds these two truths”, “Any man”): none is present. It may well be from the spoken commentary or the multi-volume printed set, neither of which we hold. Until it can be checked against the volume it actually comes from, it is not published here as his words.

Notes & Outlines

  • GenesisGENESIS 1 LIVE
  • The remaining sixty-five booksIN PREPARATION

Guidelines for Understanding Scripture

The set opens with a volume of his own on why the Bible is worth the trouble and how to read it. Two lines from it, in his voice:

“You see, it is a human book and yet it is a God-book. It is a very human book, written by men from all walks of life, prince and pauper, the highly intellectual and the very simple.”GUIDELINES FOR UNDERSTANDING SCRIPTURE, PRINTED PAGE 4
“It is the only book that can enable us to meet the emergencies and cushion the shocks that come to us in life.”GUIDELINES FOR UNDERSTANDING SCRIPTURE, PRINTED PAGE 2

THRU the BIBLE

THRU the BIBLE Notes & Outlines

These Notes & Outlines are by Dr. J. Vernon McGee and are provided by THRU the BIBLE. Continue studying the whole Word of God with Dr. McGee through THRU the BIBLE’s Bible teaching, broadcasts, and resources at TTB.org.

Notes & Outlines by Dr. J. Vernon McGee, provided by THRU the BIBLE. Explore more at TTB.org.