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John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock

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Iain Murray is surely the most gifted Christian biographer writing today. His work on Martin Lloyd Jones stands as one of the all-time classic books in any genre, and his recent work, Heroes, has two of the most emotional biographies I have ever read.

John MacArthur is my pastor, mentor, and hero in the faith. So three years ago, when John celebrated his 40th anniversary as pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, the elders asked Iain Murray if he would come and help us. We wanted to hear from Murray how exactly John fit into church history. We knew that John's time at Grace was significant, but we wanted Murray to tell us how significant it was. In other words, his assignment was to put explain the significance of MacArthur's ministry by placing into its historical context. Murray agreed, until he found out that we wanted him to do that on a Lord's Day morning, from the pulpit. He opted instead to preach, and he brought with him a 60 page mini-biography of John (Murray called it a "sketch"). This sketch is what eventually grew into the full biography released this month by Banner of Truth.

It must be noted that Murray has never written a biography of a living person before, and he was aware that he was breaking the rules. So he opted to do his research for the book without consulting or interviewing MacArthur (I assume as a way to keep the same approach to his study that served him so well on his other biographies). So in that sense, John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock is an unauthorized biography. Quotes from MacArthur were all taken from his sermons, interviews previously recorded at Grace To You, and his books. So MacArthur may still be living, but Murray approached his research without regard to that fact.

If you are a fan of Murray's writing, this book does not disappoint. He brings you into the life of MacArthur in a compelling way. Murray's description of events from MacArthur's life made me feel like I was experiencing them myself. The small house, the doting mother, the almost transient lifestyle of a pastor's son, all come alive through Murray's prose.

Murray begins his work by stating the obvious: what God has done through MacArthur's ministry is surely a testimony to His sovereignty. There have been forty million sermons downloaded, millions of tapes, millions of radio broadcasts, and over 1,000 graduates from his seminary. There is a church built right outside of Hollywood that sings hymns, preaches expositional sermons, and practices church discipline. Clearly this is God's work.

But Murray hastens to add that this is also a human story, and he relates that story exceptionally well. He describes MacArthur's family, his time at Bob Jones, and his time as an itinerant speaker. We learn that MacArthur went to the South to preach to blacks during the civil rights movement and was arrested. Murray takes us with MacArthur to Asia, and describes how he met Mother Terresa, and how depressed he was afterwards. We learn how he ended up as the pastor of Grace, how the staff mutinied, and how MacArthur endured and lead the church through a period of remarkable growth.

The focus of the latter half of the book is on the growth of Grace To You. Murray describes its origins, its growth into a tape shack on campus, and how it transformed into an international ministry that made MacArthur one of the most listened to preachers in the world, and one of the most influential authors today.

There are times when I imagine myself writing a biography of John MacArthur. In these daydreams, there are two things I want people to see about him. The first is how humble he is. People who only know him from behind the pulpit have no idea how compassionate and humble he is in real life. He is a man who does not think highly of himself, and who consistently is more concerned about others than himself. Because this is so radically different than the stereotype of MacArthur, it is exceptionally difficult to portray. But Murray captures this very well. In fact, the stregth of this book is that Murray conveys a description of MacArthur that matches the man I know.

The second point I would want to convey in my imaginary biography is how much MacArthur has done for missions. I honestly cannot think of another church through history that has had the kind of international impact that Grace Church has experienced under MacArthur's leadership. They have sent over 100 missionary families around the world, have launched thriving pastoral training centers in a dozen countries, and have seminaries that are training the next generation of pastors. To name a few examples, México, South Africa, Germany, Ukraine and Russia all have seminaries that were started by graduates of the Master's Seminary, and are now perhaps the main evangelical seminaries in their respective nations. On top of this are other seminaries, Bible colleges, training centers around the world, as well as Bible translators and pastors that are all supported by Grace Church and serve under MacArthur's leadership.

It is this second point that I feel Murray's work did not adequately capture. To be sure, he does describe the growth of Grace To You. And he does make the point that by refusing to tailor his message to a culture, MacArthur has been able to preach a message that transcends culture. But my main criticism of the book is that--apart from Grace To You--it does not really attempt to portray the depth of the global impact of MacArthur's ministry.

Internationally, the affect of MacArthur's life is not seen in the fact he is on the radio. It is seen in the fact that for many people, he trained the man who trained their pastor. The global vision of MacArthur is not simply more stations in more countries, but more qualified men behind the pulpit in every corner of the world.

Overall, John MacArthur is a helpful look at the life of this significant man. In reading other reviews of this book, I noticed that people were concerned that Murray is too approving of MacArthur. Obviously, Murray chose to write this book because of his affection for him, and so it would seem natural that it would be mostly positive. Nevertheless, Murray does have an entire chapter devoted to questions about MacArthur's ministry, and Murray deals with some of the most common criticisms levied at him (ie. "he is too dogmatic when he preaches").

Murray himself has two concerns that he leaves for the reader to answer. He wonders if MacArthur's approval of instruments in church music is a capitulation to the culture, and he wonders about how his dispensationalism relates to the rest of his theology. Murray helpfully shows how MacArthur has distanced himself from the errors of Ryrie/Scofield dispensationalism, but he notes that MacArthur remains a dispensationalist--although a different kind.

Ultimately, Murray knows this is not going to be the definitive work on MacArthur's life. Instead, he says he simply wants this book to lay the ground work for a future biographer. Whoever that is should be sincerely grateful, because this is certainly a compelling look at MacArthur's life, and it serves to make the reader thankful that God has raised up men like this to build His church.

"Servant of the Word and Flock" is an apt subtitle for Iain Murray's new biography of John MacArthur. The book leaves us convinced that no ministry is as important to MacArthur as serving his church by teaching and preaching God's word. Murray points out that the one stipulation Dr. MacArthur made when accepting the call to Grace Community Church "was that he be allowed thirty hours a week for study."

"Surely one of the greatest strengths of MacArthur's preaching ministry is his complete confidence in the text," Murray writes. MacArthur would take this as a compliment. "When I started ministry," he says, "I committed myself to expository preaching, just explaining the Bible, because I know that there was nothing I could say that was anywhere near as important as what God had to say."

Though MacArthur has served Grace Community Church for over forty years, and attendance is in the thousands, if all that he did was preach, most of us wouldn't know his name. But that's not the case; MacArthur writes more books than most Christians read. Murray gives ample attention to these as well as the controversy that sometimes follows (as in the case of The Gospel According to Jesus, which sparked the so-called Lordship Controversy). Because these books, including MacArthur's Study Bible and New Testament Commentaries, are translated in dozens of languages and shipped over the world, often at no cost to the recipient, MacArthur ministers to millions whom he has never met. That doesn't count those who listen to his sermons, free of charge, compliments of Grace to You.

Murray's book concentrates more on MacArthur's work than on the man himself. Still, we read about MacArthur's past, his childhood, and how he was shaped by his father and grandfather. We read of his humility--when the only rental car available was a Cadillac, he chose to walk the last several blocks to his appointment so as not to send the wrong message. We read about his love for others, especially his family: "The family is the one environment where your devotion, faithfulness, and consistency matter most," wrote MacArthur. Murray even dedicates an entire chapter to MacArthur's wife, Patricia, of whom MacArthur wrote: "For every grief I ever caused her, she has given me a thousand blessings in return." Murray shows that, as one of MacArthur's friends said, "His greatest sermon is his life."

While Murray's appreciation for his subject is obvious, the book is by no means an exercise in hero worship. Murray addresses MacArthur's failures and sometimes disagrees with his beliefs. One preacher from Brazil speaks for many when he wonders how MacArthur can be "soteriologically reformed and dispensational at the same time." Though Murray doesn't dwell long on his disagreement with MacArthur's views regarding the end times, he does state them, and he observes that a literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecy is inconsistent with the way the New Testament writers often interpreted Scripture.

Murray tells us twice that these 240 pages are "little more than a sketch; this is not the time, nor I the writer, to give a full portrait." While it may not end up being the most complete biography, it is hard to imagine that there will be one as well-written and interesting. We do, however, have reason to agree that "this is not the time." Though MacArthur turns 72 on the nineteenth day of this month (June 2011), he has no plans to retire:

"As the Lord permits, I hope to continue teaching God's word and shepherding His flock until the day I go to be with Him."

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Banner of Truth in exchange for an honest review.

I have listened to John MacArthur through his Grace To You radio and internet broadcasts for years, so when I received this book from Grace To You I was intrigued to learn a little more about the man behind the preaching.

This book was not hard to read, and took me very little time to get through, but for the most part the book left me sort of empty as a response. The writing seemed a bit disjointed and disconnected from the subject. We learn very little about the man, and the author spends more time discussing certain sermons that John MacArthur has preached, or topics from Christianity that John has spent his ministry preaching on.

To me this seemed more like a contrived work, where a fan is given very limited access to the subject, and in essence, is handed a file of public records, and left to his own devices in how to contrive the story. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book for me was the account of John MacArthur's trip to Southeast Asia. Details from India are rather interesting, but I came out of that account thinking that here were some spoiled Americans who were too spoiled in their ways to reach the people of India.

If you are trying to get a deeper sense of what drives John MacArthur, and to understand his ministry at the core, I don't feel I really received that here, as everything was left very sanitized, and kept at arms length. But perhaps that was intentional from the subjects perspective.

I am left to ponder whether John MacArthur's approach to ministry is what Jesus Christ had in mind for us here on earth. Stay in one place for your entire life, and never leave a 10 square mile stretch of land from where you were born. Granted, the author is careful to emphasize how MacArthur's radio ministry has touched millions of lives throughout the world. Perhaps that tells us all we need to know about how John MacArthur is being used by Christ in this lifetime.

Unfortunately, unlike the New Testament account of the life of Jesus Christ, we don't see the blood, sweat and tears of John MacArthur's life written about here.

A chance encounter on the Ohio Turnpike changed my life. I was a student at an Independent Fundamental Baptist (hereafter referred to as IFB) college. I was raised in an IFB King James Only church. The sermons I grew up with were sermons of the "pick any verse to prove your point" variety. The sermons usually ended up at the same destination. Don't smoke, don't drink, don't chew or go with girls who do. Witness more, give more, dress more (modestly). Women shouldn't wear pants; men should cut their hair. We believed we were the only ones who lived right, loved God and believed the Bible (the King James Bible).

Although there was the occasional hypocrite, we sincerely did want to live right, love God and believe the Bible. Our pastor was a good man, my hero. He taught me to follow the Word of God. I am a pastor today because of him. I am the type of pastor I am today though, because of John MacArthur.

On Sunday, June 5th, 2011, John MacArthur accomplished something that is extremely rare in a preaching ministry. He finished preaching through the entire New Testament, verse by verse. A process he began in 1969. On top of this, he did it as pastor of the same congregation for all 42 years!

I will never forget that day in late 1979 or early 1980 driving back to college. Instead of listening to my CB radio, I was channel surfing. A Christian radio station came in loud and clear. A man was preaching. I had never heard of him, but more importantly I had never heard preaching like that. It was like water to a thirsty soul. He was preaching through the Bible verse by verse and wasn't pulling any punches. He didn't share stories, tell jokes or go off on rabbit trails. His love for the Lord and respect for His Word were evident. The half hour broadcast was over way too soon. I wanted more, needed more. I took note of the program "Word of Grace" (it later became "Grace to You"). As soon as I got back to school I wrote a letter to this radio "pastor-teacher" thanking him for his ministry.

Much to my surprise I received a thank you and a study guide. Not the slick study guides of today. It looked like the church printed them in-house. The pages were cut in half and hole punched with a simple card stock cover with one color printing. Simple in design, rich in content. Eventually I received another. Then another. To this day I have them all. Over time they became more professional looking. The Grace Community Church ("Word of Grace Communications") was no longer the printer, now Grace to You published them and eventually Moody Press. The study guides were bound instead of stapled and the covers were printed in color. By now I was in the ministry, teaching weekly (or should I say weakly). I poured over these notes. They began to affect my teaching. I didn't (and still don't) preach directly from them, but they changed my approach to studying and preaching the Word. I didn't know it, but I was becoming an expository preacher, in fact I had never heard the phrase. God in his grace began to encourage me through the appreciation of those who had to listen to me.

Over the years I have listened to hundreds of John MacArthur sermons (first preaching tapes, then CDs and now on-line). I have read dozens of his books. I have grown immensely from his teaching ministry and it has impacted the way I do many things in ministry.

Anyone who has benefited from MacArthur's teaching needs to read this book. Thank you Iain Murray for a great book. Thank you John MacArthur and a radio station I only heard once.

This biography is the first written about John MacArthur, though I suspect it will not be the last. Murray wrote this biography similar to his other biographies, without interviewing the author. This allowed for a degree of objectivity and a revelation of the man through his published works and what others have had to say about him.

Unlike many modern celebrities, John MacArthur is not flashy. His power comes from his commitment to preaching the Word of God faithfully, week after week. As this book reveals, he has faced a fair amount of criticism and fire from the media and other fronts, yet for decades, he has remained faithfully dedicated to scripture. In fact, he has just finished preaching through the entire New Testament verse by verse, which took 30 years.

Despite his abundant accomplishments, his sole desire is to point others to Christ. In the 1960's, he worked with several African-American churches in the South at a time when segregation was rampant. He has remained committed to justice and to loving God's people.

Murray provides a brief summary of MacArthur's life. I have gained a deeper insight into the man whose works have played an increasingly important role in my own spiritual development.

The Iain Murray biography, John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock, is a good overview of the influential California pastor's life. The contours of his life are all outlined, from his upbringing in a godly home to his athletic career to his early ministry experience to the beginnings of his now 42 year pastorate at Grace Community Church.

There were a few surprises in the book (I didn't know about his involvement with Civil Rights in the 60's and a serious car accident in his family). I also didn't know the details of the struggles of MacArthur at Grace Community Church. He faced external pressures and internal conflicts in the church that would have brought many people to the point of breakdown or burnout. Yet for MacArthur, his love of God and desire to proclaim God's Word sustained him. For all its detail, this biography is not flashy. And in that way, it is just like the man. I remember a round table discussion once featuring John Piper and John MacArthur. Piper talked about sitting on his porch and crying during a trying spiritual time. When MacArthur was asked about similar experiences, he could not identify anything like that in his experience. He simply seems to be a very even personality and this came through in the book. The subject of this biography is a man of eminent faithfulness. This makes for a biography that, while not exciting, is still inspiring.

Iain Murray is one of my favorite biography writers. His books on Evangelicalism history have always been good reading to me as was his book on the Holy Spirit. For Christmas 2010 I received Murray's book on John Wesley and the men who followed him after his death and the history of the early Methodist movement. Murray, despite being a Calvinist, was fair to Wesley and the early Methodist leaders even if he disagreed with their theology.

I was then excited when I first heard that Murray was writing a biography on John MacArthur. I enjoy Dr. MacArthur's ministry even if he and I don't see eye to eye on every point. I was thrilled then to learn more about Dr. MacArthur and his background. I was not disappointed with the book.

The book, like typical biographies, begins with MacArthur's childhood and the godly family that he was born into. His father and grandfather were men of God. Both valued education and being faithful to the Word of God as the inerrant and infallible Word of God. But what Murray does differently that most biographers is that he begins this book with a summary of just what it means biblically to be an evangelical leader. This was a great start. It showed that Murray's passion is not just to write a biography of a Christian but to help people learn from MacArthur's example (Hebrews 13:7).

The book moves quickly covering MacArthur's upbringing, his love of sports (he was drafted by the Washington Redskins), and his conversion to Christ. Murray highlights MacArthur's theological education and his calling to become the pastor of Grace Community Church in southern California. The church, at that time (1969), had about 350 members. Today it has more than 10,000. MacArthur believes the church has grown because of God's faithfulness and the preaching of the Word as central. MacArthur doesn't believe the growth of Grace should bring glory to himself but simply to the Lord of salvation.

Arminians will find nothing in the book that will attack Arminianism. This is a positive. While Murray leaves no doubt that MacArthur is a Calvinist, he doesn't spend time attacking those who disagree with MacArthur. Even the controversial aspects of MacArthur such as the Lordship Salvation controversy in the 1980's, the Charismatic issue of the early 1990's, and the Roman Catholic-Evangelical dialogues of the late 1990's are given some time but even there Murray doesn't dwell.

The one aspect of the book that I would like to have seen more writing on is the failures of MacArthur. I don't mean that he should talk about his personal sins but every person except Jesus is not perfect (Proverbs 20:9). He does talk about MacArthur's salvation and that he was a sinner but all of us in life make mistakes and I would like to read some of MacArthur's. I do praise God that he has been faithful all these years to his wife and to the church but I know that all of us still need Jesus at all times.

Overall, this book was good reading. I read it in just three nights. At only 246 pages, the book was easy to read. Reading biographies are very helpful because we can learn from the examples of others (even poor examples). I am thankful that Iain Murray has written this book.

Iain Murray states in the foreword to John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock that his primary goal is to encourage people with "little more than a 'sketch'" of the well-known contemporary evangelical pastor's life. Murray is correct in the assessment of his own work--while 240 pages long in the original, hardback edition, the book lacks a great amount of depth and so reads more like an overview of MacArthur's life than a detailed biography. Fortunately, however, Murray also largely meets his goal despite the book's limitations.

Those deficiencies largely arise from Murray's approach to his subject matter. As revealed by one of Grace Community Church's elders in another review of this book on Amazon, Murray never interviewed his subject, but instead relied mostly on printed sources for his "sketch." (He apparently interviewed a few people such as Phil Johnson, the primary editor of MacArthur's sermons for book publication.) As a result, the book is full of quotations from MacArthur's books, letters, and speeches, often giving the reader only the information about the topic at hand that MacArthur himself has provided. Surprisingly, as well, a large number of these quotes are unattributed, save for a phrase such as "MacArthur said in [fill in the year]" or, even more nebulously, "MacArthur would later say." (References in either footnote or endnote form should still be provided for speeches and letters. There are unfortunately a few inaccuracies, too, in the references that do exist; for example, the book The Master's Plan for the Church is never cited by its correct title, being variously called either only The Master's Plan or A Master's Plan for Church Leadership.)

Objectivity is also lacking at times due to Murray's biases. The author occasionally acts as a (perhaps unintentional) cheerleader for MacArthur; at one point, he criticizes unnamed evangelical dictionaries as being only "reputedly evangelical" for not including entries on MacArthur. Conversely, he is not afraid to express his disagreement with MacArthur on issues that are obviously critical ones for him, particularly the use of instruments in public worship and, to a lesser extent, Dispensationalism. (And yet while he discusses a number of criticisms made of MacArthur, he fails to mention the most common one I've heard and read over the years: that MacArthur too often overstates his polemical arguments and ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater.) A third tack is taken when Murray notes MacArthur's silence concerning the young Reformed movement, only to then extensively editorialize on that subject, hypothesizing without direct evidence that MacArthur would agree with at least some of his concerns.

The biggest problem, however, is the book's superficiality. Most notably, significant events surrounding the "lordship salvation" controversy after the publication of MacArthur's most famous book, The Gospel according to Jesus, are totally absent. The controversy's remarkably lengthy publishing life, with three responses to MacArthur (Charles Ryrie's So Great Salvation, Zane Hodges's Absolutely Free, and Michael Horton's Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation) and then MacArthur's counter-response to both Ryrie and Hodges (The Gospel according to the Apostles, originally titled Faith Works), followed by a revised edition of The Gospel according to Jesus, is barely discussed. MacArthur reportedly revised The Gospel according to Jesus largely as a result of reading Christ the Lord and communicating with Horton; it would have been worthwhile to read MacArthur's take on this matter. Contemporary Christian recording artist Steve Camp was inspired enough by The Gospel according to Jesus to devote an entire album to the themes of the book (Consider the Cost, released in 1991). His growing relationship with MacArthur continued to influence his music and eventually led to his becoming one of Grace Community Church's pastors, but the singer is never mentioned. At one point. Murray briefly alludes to the controversy's impact in the United Kingdom but never provides any details, frustrating this reader who wanted to know more.

Beyond the lordship salvation issue, other topics receive short shrift. The reader is told, for example, of MacArthur publicly distancing himself from Billy Graham and Anglican evangelical theologian J. I. Packer, but in both cases with only a minimal amount of information that provides no hint of why reconciliation has not occurred. Christianity Today's largely negative early '90s review of three MacArthur books led MacArthur to respond with a letter to the magazine, by my recollection, but that disagreement gets no coverage here. Murray's at-best mixed appraisal of MacArthur's Dispensationalism surprisingly only mentions indirectly and in passing MacArthur's much-discussed dismissal of amillenialism. And while Murray covers the growth of Grace Community Church to some degree, much more could have been written. Personally, I would be interested in knowing the order in which MacArthur preached the books, what factors led to his decisions about what next to preach, and how some of the preaching series impacted the congregation as a whole. We get some of this in Murray's discussion of how MacArthur's preaching on the Beatitudes impacted Grace Community Church, but that's an already well-documented story; information on other series would have been valuable. And Murray commendably includes a brief discussion of MacArthur's joint early ministry with African American pastor John Perkins during the civil rights crusade, but the reader is left feeling that so much more information could have been provided on a comparatively little-known, but critical, topic from MacArthur's past.

Even with all of the selectivity, however, Murray meets his goal for anyone who appreciates or admires MacArthur, as the book paints the picture of a pastor who has been faithful to God in a myriad of ways. The author wisely includes a chapter near the end showing how MacArthur's broadcasts have positively changed lives around the world. (Murray is best throughout the book when he details MacArthur's ministry expansion worldwide, as here he writes on comparatively lesser-known matters.) In particular, those who listen to MacArthur's Grace to You broadcasts but have little knowledge of his ministry should garner much from this work. Even those who are more critical of MacArthur might find themselves uplifted in some respects from reading Murray's "sketch," despite the fact that a fuller, more substantive, and more objective biography remains to be written.

Iain Murray is a wonderful biographer who has captured the lives of men such as David Martyn Lloyd-Jones the First Forty Years 1899-1939 (v. 1) (2 vol) and Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography. In his newest work, "John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock," Murray presents the life and ministry of MacArthur. This is an interesting project for Murray since the subject of his book is still alive and leading a thriving ministry. Murray recognizes and admits that this biography is by no means complete and MacArthur's life will one day warrant a complete biography, though he says he is not the one to do it.

As I read through this account of MacArthur's life there are a few things that standout to me that really characterize MacArthur and his ministry. Murray captures very well that MacArthur's drive in ministry is unapologetically the Word of God. Since being called by Grace Community Church in 1969 he has consistently set aside 30 hours per week devoted to the study of the Word. This has allowed to preach through the entire New Testament verse by verse (June 2011). These sermons are what make up his commentary series published by Moody Publishers.

Another point that I came away with, though it wasn't necessarily discussed by Murray, is that MacArthur has surrounded himself with helpful, godly, and capable people. There would be no other way he would be able to write and publish as many books as he has while speaking as much as he does. Much of this credit, Murray says, is due to Grace To You's Executive Director Phil Johnson who handles most of MacArthur's book projects.

It is really unimaginable the impact the ministry of John MacArthur has had and what it will continue to have. Through his many years of tape ministry, Grace To You letters, books, and thousands of sermons, he has impacted the life of millions.

This is a book I found enjoyable and easily read. Murray is a great writer and explains life and ministry well. I read the entire book (240 pages) in three separate sittings. I think it is helpful to read biographies in larger chucks if possible. It helps give you a fuller picture of the story (much like Scripture). I do not think you would be disappointed to give some hours over to reading this great work.

FTC Rhetoric: I do not receive payment for my book reviews. I do sometimes receive free review and giveaway copies from authors, publishers, and publicists. My first responsibility is to my readers, therefore, I am committed to honest reviews.

This is a great biography - and the first I read on someone who is still alive. I can't believe Iain Murray (he is a great writer) wrote a biography on MacArthur. This was a fun encouraging read as I got to see the life and ministry of the man who may go down in history as the greatest expository preacher of our generation. The book takes you through the early days of John MacArthur, how he decided to go into ministry, the early days of Grace to You, and such and such. What was most encouraging was that MacArthur had and still has no ambition for fame - he only wants to simply proclaim truthfully the word of God and hold to the promise that God blesses his word. You can see that easily throughout the book and throughout his life, and God has clearly blessed him for that. He has a clear love and confidence for the word which is something desperately needed today. I was very encouraged and respect the man and his ministry much more now and I encourage you all to read it. For all who went to Resolved and are wondering if there is a chapter on his wife - Yes... there is... but only 2 sentences on how he got her.. the rest is on how godly she is. And yes - there are pictures in this book (although I wish there were a few more).