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Walt Henrichsen January 4, 2016 PART ONE For many of us, September marks the beginning of a new year. Children return to school, summer holidays (for those who take them) are over, and we gear up for another year. This month also begins a new series. In it I want to explore what the Bible teaches about sin. Most of us don’t give this subject a great deal of thought. We acknowledge that we are sinners and would just as soon not dwell on it. I hope, however, that our brief expl

Walt Henrichsen January 5, 2016 EPILOG A number of you have responded to the recently ended series on Who Defines the Ministry? The issue continues to occupy my thinking, particularly in light of current events. If you will indulge me, I want to resurrect it again in this issue of the Dear Co—Laborer letter and then in January return to the subject of Relativism. In the series on Who Defines the Ministry I sought to show that neither the individual believer nor the institutio

Walt Henrichsen January 5, 2016 In this issue I take a break from Eternal Hope and call attention to the moral decline that characterizes the lives of those who call themselves Christians. Introduction The Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, says: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one bo

Walt Henrichsen January 5, 2016 In the March Dear Co-Laborer letter we examined That Which Delights the Heart of God. It was meant to be a bridge between the previous series, Who Defines the Minis­try, and the current one, Relativism, even though the two are not inter—connected. Because a broken dependent heart seeking the face of God is more important to Him than theological accuracy, it is possible for a person to be involved in an activity that is not Biblically considered

Part 25 Introduction Dating the Pseudepigrapha presents a bit of a conundrum: Most acknowledged scholars tend to be liberal in their critical work. For example, because Daniel prophesizes so accurately the future, these scholars tend to date Daniel around the second century, BC, after the events prophesized by Daniel. They also tend to conclude that biblical writers borrowed from other religions rather than vice versa. Because the Pseudepigrapha uses phrases and language simi

[1] Ephesians 1:18, RSV [2] Colossians 1:5, KJV [3] Genesis 13:15, JPS (Jewish Publication Society) [4] Hebrews 11:16, RSV [5] Micah 4:5 [6] Cf. Romans 11 [7] 1 Timothy 6:8, KJV [8] Hebrews 11:10, KJV [9] Genesis 2:17, JPS [10] Genesis 3:24 [11] Sarna, Nahum M., The JPS Torah Commentary on Genesis, Nahum M. Sarna, general editor, The Jewish pu [12] Levine, Baruch, The JPS Torah Commentary on Leviticus, Nahum M. Sarna, general editor, The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelph

Eternal Hope Part 31 Introduction Assuming that the Pseudepigrapha is not God-inspired, I am struck by how the writers, having embraced an eternal hope for the just (and eternal damnation for the unjust), embellish with fantastic imagination what eternity for the two groups will be like. These writers do not differ all that much from believers today. The Bible says very little about the details of what heaven and hell will be like, and we can easily “fill in the blanks” with

Walt Henrichsen January 6, 2016 Part One This begins what will probably prove to be a long series on eternal hope. As you know, hope is the only sustaining influence in a person’s life. Love, obligation, fear – these and other factors can motivate, but only hope can provide a motivation that stands the test of disappointment. You will find “hope” used 129 times in the King James Version of the Bible, 141 times in the NAS, and 185 times in the RSV. Hope defines the object of y

Walt Henrichsen June 26, 2015 Part Seven Judgment is the fruit of justice and law defines justice. All of us loath the though of judgment; very rarely do we hear the subject exposited in our churches. Yet we all insist upon it when our rights are violated. Interestingly, we are one of the most unforgiving and litigious societies in history, yet we avoid discussing personal accountability. We want justice, but we do not want to be just. More accurately, we want to define justi

Walt Henrichsen June 26, 2015 Part One In the series on eschatology I endeavored to show the strategic role it plays in the Christian life. Most see eschatology as the “caboose” of theology, when in reality it is the “engine.” All of us are motivated by hope. We have short, intermediate, and long-range hopes. Our long-range hope is an eternity with God in heaven. Eschatology is the biblical study of what God says we can legitimately hope for on the other side of the grave. On

Walt Henrichsen March 12, 2015 As noted in the September issue, this is the second of three sub-issues dealing with how presumption influences grace in the life of the believer. Presumption is an abuse of the freedom found in grace. LEGALITY AND MORALITY Legality and morality are similar to liberty and self-denial in that it is necessary to understand both in order to avoid presuming on God’s grace. A failure to understand and apply legality and morality in the Christian life

Walt Henrichsen March 12, 2015 Part One The afternoon of February 14 my mother passed into the presence of God. She was 83 years old. You may remember that my father died the Thursday before last Easter. As I reflect back over my years under their leader­ship, I realize how blessed I am. In all of the years that I knew them, not once did I ever hear them argue or raise their voices to one another in anger. Mom sub­mitted to Dad’s headship, and Dad treated Mom with honor and r

Walt Henrichsen March 12, 2015 ISLAM AND THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION Islam came to the world in the seventh century through the Prophet Mohammed. Although it borrowed heavily from the Judeo-Christian religions, it looked more to Judaism than Christianity in a number of important ways. First, it thought Christianity to be polytheistic with its emphasis on the Trinity, an emphasis not found in Judaism. Second, it sought to create a theocratic state, not unlike the Old Testament th

Walt Henrichsen March 12, 2015 Part Twenty Dear Co-laborer, A very happy new year from our house to yours. May 1997 be the best year ever in your life, and may it be the year of His return! Lord willing, 1997 will bring to a close this series on eschatology. Four parts remain, which means the last issue will be in September. What role, if any, does the Old Testament Law play in the life of the New Testament believer? This question baffles many of Christ’s followers. People ar

Walt Henrichsen December 31, 2014 Part Thirteen If God took Israel into His confidence regarding their future, as noted with Abraham, Jeremiah, and Daniel, then we can conclude that He does not do this with the Church. From the time of Christ’s disciples to the present, God’s people have been unable to ascertain the time of Christ’s return. I remember a book entitled Eighty-eight Reasons Why the Lord is Returning in 1988. When 1988 came and went, the author published a new bo

Walt Henrichsen December 31, 2014 Part Seven By way of review, in the early days of the Church, Judaism sought to stamp out the heresy that Jesus was Messiah. By 100 AD, or 70 years after the death of Christ, the breach between Christianity and Judaism was absolute, with the latter sending out letters from Palestine to all synagogues informing them of the necessity of excluding Christians from their assemblies. As the church became increasingly Gentile, this antipathy between

Walt Henrichsen December 23, 2014 September, 1993 Dear Co-laborer, Leette and I are the proud grandparents of Matthew Alexander Lance, born to our daughter Deborah on August 14. As most of you know, Deborah and her husband Michael live in Mexico City where he is a banking officer with Standard Chartered of England. Matt came into the world in San Diego, and so it will take awhile for the parents to process the paperwork in order to take him out of the country. Meanwhile we ge

Part One Access to technology precludes the need to develop thinking. The attitude among many of today’s youth is, “Why take the time and effort to memorize when I have immediate access to the answer? You do not memorize the answer to 96 times 84, so why should I memorize nine times nine? I have machines that give me the immediate answer to both questions. I can easily ‘Google’ any question I want answered.” People do not wish to think deeply about subjects; they do not perce

Walt Henrichsen June 19, 2014 All men everywhere agree that truth is absolute. I used to think that some believe that truth is relative, but such is not the case. You can know that all believe truth to be absolute because all judge. People are incapable of not judging! The moment a person says, “That is wrong,” or “He shouldn’t have done that, or That is not fair,” or any other moral pronouncement of any kind–even though he may never verbalize it–he argues that there is a sta

Walt Henrichsen December 7, 2015 Part 1 Heaven is where everyone desires to go. The Bible is quite clear that hell is where everyone deserves to go. God, because of His infinite grace, provides a way for the sinner to go to heaven through the propitious death of Jesus Christ. This is the good news of the gospel. There was a day in the history of the church when the majority of those who called themselves Christians thought that they had to do something to qualify or contribut