BITS and PIECES
266th Edition – October 26, 2025
A random collection of news and views compiled by Frank McClelland for the Toronto Free Presbyterian Church.
WHAT AN AMAZING WORLD
We live in an amazing technological world, and each day reveals some new thing using a small handheld phone. I have lived through days when there was no phone, to when the phone was a novelty, to the present-day smartphone that nearly everyone has, and seemingly cannot do without.
Recently, my wife and I drove the 85-miles to my son’s cottage to spend a couple of days there, but on arrival, we could not get in. For some reason, the key and door code would not work, so we were faced with the long drive home again. But before we did, out came the trusty phone to call our son, who was in Florida at the time.
After explaining our predicament, he replied as most Canadians do, ‘No problem.’ He handed his phone to his wife in Florida, and she opened the cottage from over 1,000 miles away! I was astounded.
The cell phone is fine if its battery is charged. We are to continually be at work for the Lord, but sometimes our spiritual batteries are flat. They will be if we neglect God’s Word and prayer. Now is the time to catch up and get our spiritual batteries charged to the full. Read and pray daily.
WHAT GOD HAS DONE
Don’t think that people in Bible times were dumb. Artifacts found from BC prove the skill of those people, including a gold coin found in a Jerusalem parking lot recently. The gold relic is a small denomination quarter-drachma of 99.3% pure gold dating back to 246-241BC. It was minted for Queen Berenice of Egypt. It is beautifully made.
There is no doubt that in this scientific age, man has made astounding advances on earth and in space exploration, but we ought not to lose sight of the fact that none of these would be possible if God had not made the world in the way He has.
The wise Solomon got it right when he said, “There is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, see this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us” [Ecclesiastes 1:9,10].
In other words, everything that happens has already happened before. Human development rests on what has gone before. Man is not an originator. The discoveries he makes are to unlock the meaning of what God has already made. The trouble mainly is, he does not recognize the existence of the great Creator and Sustainer of all things, and thus renders himself a “fool” [Psalm 14:1].
WORTH THINKING ABOUT
“I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number” [Job 5:8,9].
You may try, of course, to search out God’s marvelous things. Scientists have spent their lives (and budgets) trying to find the limits of the physical world. They have plumbed the oceans, explored the hidden mysteries of space, travelled into the heart of the molecule and atom.
Yet for every answer they discover, they find another thousand questions. How much more unsearchable are the vast expanses of His grace. Become an explorer today in the limitless regions of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” [Ephesians 3:8].
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME
Last Thursday King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited the pope, then they had a time of prayer together in the Sistine Chapel, the first time such an event has occurred since the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago.
Camilla was completely dressed in black to satisfy the Vatican’s strict protocol requirements. Charles is the titular head of the Anglican Church but the newly minted Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullaly, was conspicuous by her absence. The Vatican does not countenance female clerics.
Besides she is embroiled in serious controversy because many Anglicans are opposed to the idea of a female archbishop.
Rev. Kyle Paisley, son of the late Dr. Ian Paisley, and minister of Oulton Broad Free Presbyterian Church in England was interviewed by BBC. He said the king ought to withdraw from the papal meeting, or else abdicate so a true Protestant could occupy the throne. This king has betrayed the faith.
