Jon Magee was born in 1951 at RAF Cosford in Shropshire, England, into a nomadic military family. His father served in the British Royal Air Force as a Medical Secretary, and Magee himself later spent ten years in the RAF as an Electronic Technician working on aircraft communications systems. Because of his family’s postings, he rarely lived anywhere longer than three years and attended fourteen schools before completing his secondary education.

His early life placed him at the center of many defining moments of late twentieth-century history. In the 1950s he lived in Singapore during the Chinese riots; from 1960 to 1962 he was in Germany at the height of the Cold War; and in 1966–67 he lived in Aden (Yemen) during the conflict and British evacuation. As an adult he witnessed further historic events, including political tensions in Malta and the 1974 military coup and Turkish invasion of Cyprus, where he lived with his new wife, Joan.

After sensing a call to ministry, Magee trained at the Bible Training Institute in Glasgow and later at the Scottish Baptist College. Ordained in 1983, he has served for more than forty years in pastoral ministry in Scotland and England, engaging in community outreach, chaplaincy in schools and industry, prison ministry, and international mission partnerships.

Married to Joan, Magee is the father of five children and grandfather to five grandchildren. In addition to writing for magazines and local newspapers, he is the author of From Barren Rocks … to Living Stones and Paradise Island, Heavenly Journey. His writing draws deeply from his unusual life experience, offering realistic reflections on faith, conflict, and the ways Christian be