Kay Arthur (1933–2025): The Woman Who Taught Me To Study The Bible

Many of us learned about the Bible for the first time in Sunday school classes or youth group Bible studies. Perhaps in college we learned how to study it for ourselves through a campus ministry or from older believers who took us under their wings.

I was blessed to grow up attending church every week, and I can’t remember a time before I knew the names of Noah, Moses, Peter, and Paul. The Bible was always familiar to me. I was involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in high school and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in college, and I was blessed to have real-life mentors who taught me about faith and truth and walking with God.

However, when asked the question “Who taught you to study the Bible?” I answer without hesitation: Kay Arthur.

Study After Study

I stumbled on Kay’s studies at the local Christian bookstore, a place I frequented during my high school years (it was named The Sign of the Fish, a classic early ’90s Christian bookstore). My first study was Lord, I Need Grace to Make It Today. Her guidance through the Scriptures helped me develop a deep theology of grace while wrestling with the difficult-to-understand (especially for someone raised in the Methodist tradition) concept of predestination.

I continued with Lord, I Want to Know You, learning and studying the names of God throughout the Bible. I began to understand the reality of spiritual warfare by studying Ephesians 6 in Kay’s book Lord, Is It Warfare? and the reality of suffering by studying Habakkuk in Lord, Where Are You When Bad Things Happen? She taught me to pray the Lord’s prayer in Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days—it’s a book I still recommend to people who want to grow in their prayer lives.

All these studies still sit on my bookshelf, with page after page filled out in my youthful bubble handwriting. I did one book after another throughout high school and then began using her more in-depth Precept materials to study various books of the Bible in college.

All these studies still sit on my bookshelf, with page after page filled out.

Study after study, line by line, precept upon precept, Kay taught her readers God’s Word. She reminded us that Scripture is the only plumb line of truth by which to measure our thoughts, words, and deeds. Through her studies, I learned to pay attention to repeated words, contrasts and comparisons, descriptive lists, locations, and genre, and I learned the importance of reading the text again and again before seeking to interpret and apply it. As she led me through the Scriptures, she reminded me daily of my identity in Christ: beloved.

Lasting Legacy of Truth

I read the news of Kay’s passing with a profound sense of both grief and gratitude. I’m so thankful for her faithful love of the Scriptures that she shared with so many.

The extent of her influence is difficult to quantify. She wrote more than 100 books and Bible studies, with more than 10 million in print. She has inductive studies on all 66 books of the Bible, and her Bible studies are taught in 90 languages in 190 countries. For more than 20 years, her radio and TV program Precepts for Life reached more than 75 million households every day in more than 30 countries. It’s overwhelming to consider the number of people who learned how to study their Bibles inductively because of her years of faithful teaching and writing.

Study after study, line by line, precept upon precept, Kay Arthur taught her readers God’s Word.

In one of her last blog posts, Kay mentioned the difficulty of her struggle with Parkinson’s, noting, “It’s a chore for me to type. I have Parkinson’s, and believe me, it’s not for sissies. Sometimes I forget what I was saying or thinking, so I try to get everything down as soon as possible.” Yet she was still writing and speaking, pointing people to God’s Word as the only light in the darkness of our days, reminding us, “O beloved, do you realize the answer to everything is ultimately Jesus, our beloved Savior, in Whom we live and have our being?”

Meeting a Mentor

A few years ago, in September 2022, I had the pleasure of speaking at the True Woman conference. During dinner one evening, I was surprised to see Kay sitting at the table beside mine. She graciously listened as I told her how much her ministry had meant in my life. Tears filled my eyes as I had the opportunity to say, “Thank you for teaching me how to study the Bible.” Truly, her words led me to the Word, and it changed my life in every way imaginable.

I didn’t know it at the time, but her interview with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth that evening would be one of Kay’s final speaking engagements. She boldly proclaimed our need for God’s Word and the power of his work in our lives, and she ended her time with these words:

May the results and the fruit of this time together and this ministry, and our ministry, and Joni’s, and others, may it be used mightily of God so that when we see him, he’ll look at us and he’ll say, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into . . . the joy of the Lord.” . . .

I have one more thing to tell you. I’ve done it when I’ve spoken to large crowds, so you meet the qualifications. What I’ve prayed (I don’t think he’ll do it tonight) but I’ve prayed, “Lord, I pray that when I die, I’ll die on the platform!”

I pray that I will be standing there, have taught the Word of God, and get a grand and glorious heart attack and that someone will come to the platform and tell them to repent and how to be saved.

That would be a good way to go, wouldn’t it?

Absent from the body, present with the Lord. (2 Cor. 5:8) and wanting to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Today, her faith is made sight. Her Savior has welcomed her home, and she knows now more than ever that she’s truly beloved.

Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into his joy!