William Hendriksen was born in Tiel, Gelderland, in the Netherlands in November 1900, but his family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1911. He studied at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary before obtaining an S.T.D. degree from Pike’s Peak Bible Seminary, as was common for on-the-job pastors seeking doctorates in the 1930s and 1940s. It is there that he wrote the thesis on the Book of Revelation More than Conquerors, which became Baker Book House’s first publication in 1940.
Hendriksen served as a minister in the Christian Reformed Church, with a period (1942-1952) as Professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary. He started the New Testament Commentary, and completed commentaries on half of the New Testament books before his death in 1982. He received a Th.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.