“Why fight against God when He is God? Why not allow Him to put His arms around you and encircle you and be your strength, your life, your redeemer?”
At Esther Press, we empower and equip women to courageously stand strong in the truth of who God made them to be. Let us do that for you today by sharing the story of Kay Arthur.
Individuals’ deaths are often notable when their lives have been notable. The recent passing of Kay Arthur at ninety-one might seem significant only to Christian women who participated in her famed Precept studies or were directly affected by her teaching and speaking ministry. However, if you have participated in any Bible study by a woman in the last thirty years or used a colorful writing utensil to highlight a word, phrase, or lengthy passage in your Bible, you have been influenced by Kay.
From Home Bible Study to Global Ministry
Kay grew up in church, but the religious ritual didn’t equal a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Only after she and her first husband divorced did she, as a single, working mother of two, cry out to God and submit her life to Him. She later met and married Jack Arthur, who worked for the Pocket Testament League distributing the Gospel of John internationally. After three years in Mexico as missionaries, the couple and their three children settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Jack found work managing a local Christian radio station while Kay hosted a Bible study for teens in their home. This small in-home gathering for teens led to Precept Ministries International, a ministry spanning five decades and expanding to 180 countries and 70 languages.
Kay learned the inductive Bible study method from reading Independent Bible Study by Irving L. Jensen. Unlike devotional reading or commentaries, which starts with someone else’s thoughts, inductive study starts with Scripture. She adapted Jensen’s methods of observation, interpretation, and application and started teaching an inductive approach in her own studies. She believed the Bible’s claim that, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). She wanted to equip people to dig into Scripture to discover what it means and how it applies to life.
Passing the Torch
As the author of over one-hundred books and Bible resources, Kay Arthur cleared the pathway for many women who have followed in her footsteps by authoring Bible studies and speaking God’s truth to any audience who would listen. She encouraged women to ask the journalistic “five W’s and the H”—who, what, when, where, why, and how—as they read their Bibles and to note with colored pencils or pens, highlighters, and markers key themes, relationships, and patterns they found through their studying. Through her empowering teaching methods, women gained confidence to rightly handle the Word of God without seminary degrees.
Her goal was that people would know God’s character and know His Word. To Kay, the two were interdependent. At the 2022 True Woman conference, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth interviewed Kay in front of a packed auditorium. Kay encouraged the audience to “know God deeply and live differently. You cannot know God deeply apart from the Word of God.”
Strength in Weakness
During the interview, Kay displayed her love for God’s Word and her own humility. At nearly eighty-nine years old, she courageously pointed to the tremor in her foot and admitted to the cognitive difficulties she was experiencing from Parkinson’s disease. Kay was unapologetically living out 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 where Paul says the Lord’s power is made perfect in his weakness.
A lengthy life is not without its trials nor tragedies. Kay wanted to make clear to the women at that conference that in her times of suffering, she found refuge in the Word of God. “The more you [run to the Word of God], the easier it becomes.” She had confidence that God’s will is good, acceptable, and perfect (Rom. 12:2) and that the Word holds the keys to all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).
Kay Arthur’s life was indeed a notable one. And so, as we reflect on her homegoing, we thank God for the opportunities He provided for her to learn to love His Word and for her obedience to His call that enabled us to learn to love His Word as well.
Do you share Kay’s passion for God’s character and His Word? Find another woman you can mentor to love it like you by doing a Bible study or picking a book of the Bible to read through together, using the inductive method. Or do you desire to know God’s Word better? Identify a woman God has placed in your life who you admire for her love of His Word and ask her to help you do the same.
