After the service on Sunday a lady from our church asked me a very interesting question. She had heard me say two things that can be difficult to reconcile in our minds. I had said: “It is sin that ultimately blocks us from receiving the blessings and gifts of God. That’s why in James 5, in the passage about calling the elders to pray for you when you are sick it says: Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:16 ESV) Unconfessed,…

The Apostle John is the only New Testament author to use the term “antichrist” or any derivative thereof. John uses the terms “antichrist”, “antichrists” and “the spirit of antichrist” for a total of 5 references in his epistles. Many scholars believe that the person referred to by the Apostle Paul as “the man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2 is the same person or phenomenon referred to by John as “the antichrist.” Both figures fulfill a pattern that originates in the Book of Daniel and…

Editors’ note:  This article is the second part in a two-part series reflecting on our failed efforts at reform within the CBOQ. The first article called “Why I Left And Why I Stayed” can be found here. This article builds on the stories and recollections shared there. I (Paul Carter) wrote the bones of this article after initial discussions with Marc, who then sent me specific additions of his own which have been added after each section to which they apply. In 2011, when our journey of reform…

In 2013 Marc Bertrand and I (Paul Carter) co-founded a renewal movement called CLRA (pronounced like the lady’s name “Clara”) within the CBOQ (Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec). Our goal was to call our association back to its historical values and commitments. We did this mostly through conferences, blogs and resource sharing. However, in 2017 a line was crossed which required us to take a more direct and confrontational approach. A church in our association stated publicly that they…

Image: Edwardx, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons I have long been an admirer of the Independent (Baptist?) author John Bunyan. His Pilgrim’s Progress, Grace Abounding and Holy War have been frequent companions. However, I only recently had occasion to read Of Antichrist And His Ruin. The following represents my attempt at a brief review intended to assist the casual reader in making sense of Bunyan’s views and aims. Like every pastor, preacher and author, Bunyan was to a great extent, a…

As a 48-year-old man, I’ve reached that stage of my life where I spend a fair bit of time looking backward, attempting to discern the movement and patterns of God’s providence. I now see several key influences and a handful of critical turning points God used to protect and position me for a lifetime of pastoral ministry. One moment in particular stands out as significant—the moment I took a role as a youth pastor. Critical Turning Point I was 23, about halfway through my seminary program,…

What is the binding of Satan talked about in Revelation 20? If we use Scripture to interpret Scripture, it would seem to refer to the inbreaking of Jesus’ reign and rule in his first coming. In Mark 3:27 Jesus says: “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” (Mark 3:27 ESV) Jesus said this to explain his own ministry. He was able to exorcise demons, heal and save precisely because he had bound…

The Bible has a lot to say about money, which isn’t terribly surprising given how important money is within human society. Some of the things the Bible says about money are quite well known while other aspects of its teaching remain relatively obscure. Perhaps the most surprising thing that the Bible says about money is that it isn’t evil in and of itself. 1. It isn’t evil in and of itself We sometimes think that the Bible says that money is the root of all evil, but that isn’t what the Bible…

The Lord’s Prayer was intended as a model not a mantra. Given the way it is often used today, it is more than a little ironic to observe that the model was taught, at least in part, as an alternative to the mindless, repetitive nature of pagan prayer. Jesus said: “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7 ESV) In contrast to the repetitive babble of the pagans, Jesus taught his disciples: “Pra…

I recently preached a sermon on Jesus’ teaching about truthfulness as found in the Sermon on the Mount. The message generated a surprising number of follow up questions; the most common of which was “Is it ever ok for a Christian to lie?” I addressed that question in a previous blog that you can find here. A related question that came up in some of those same conversations has to do with matters of definition. “What exactly does and does not constitute a lie?” Perhaps it would be helpful to…

For the rest of our lives we will almost certainly be reckoning time in terms of “Pre” and “Post” Pandemic. Regardless of what you think about the severity of the virus itself or the wisdom and efficacy of the various health and safety measures enacted by the government, it cannot be denied that the world has changed and life will never be the same again for any of us. As Christians, we believe that God is Sovereign, so whatever secondary causes we may identify, it remains true that the Lord…

This past Sunday I preached on Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount concerning the matter of truthfulness. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day had developed a number of elaborate rules governing which oaths were to be considered binding and which were not. They said that if a person swears by Jerusalem then such an oath is not binding, but if a person swears toward Jerusalem then such an oath is binding. Similarly, if a person swears by the temple then the oath is not…