BITS and PIECES
A random collection of news and views compiled by Frank McClelland for the Toronto Free Presbyterian Church.
247th Edition – June 15, 2025
MISSING LINK?
A news item emanating from Calgary this week tells of the discovery of what they claim may be a missing link between smaller dinosaurs and those that are much larger. This is a necessary step to ‘prove’ that evolution has continued from species to species until humans evolved.
The amazing thing is that this fossil was found in the 1970s and it has taken fifty years to draw this conclusion! The fossil, they say, is 85 million years old. The evolutionist casually throws millions of years about as if they were days of a week. Their dating methods have much difficulty.
Take, for example, a barrel containing 18 inches of water. Rain is falling at one inch per day so we can calculate that the rain has been falling for 18 days. Right? Not necessarily. It is only correct if the barrel was empty at the beginning and the rain has been falling at the same rate every day.
This simple illustration shows the absurdity of the evolutionists’ dating methods. There is no way we in this twentieth century can know that the rate of deposition or decay of some substance was the same 85 million years ago. Nor does it take into account the fact that God made a grown earth. After the week of creation, the earth was complete with the appearance of age even though it was just one week old.
Don’t let these ‘smart Alecs’ disturb you with their rhetoric to believe the devil’s lie. Just read the early chapters of Genesis, and rest on the fact that God’s “Word is truth.” [John 17:17].
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES
Most Christians are aware that the original Scriptures were written mostly in Hebrew for the Old Testament, and Greek for the New. There are some Old Testament sections that were written in Aramaic such as Ezra 4:8 – 6:18 and Daniel 2:4 – 7:28.
Aramaic is a north-western semitic language and was spoken in Israel in the time of Christ. He would have been very familiar with it, and probably used it.
The original Bible languages were inspired by the Holy Spirit and are therefore infallible. In our day we rely on a translation of copies of the original Holy Scripture which is why we must be very careful about what translation we use. The Free Presbyterian Church uses only the reliable King James or Authorized Version of the Bible.
Some argue that its language is old (it was first printed in 1611), but for the Bible scholar this is no problem. There are all kinds of written helps to clarify any words that may have changed their meaning over the passage. For example, charity [I Cor. 13] is the Greek agape and is normally rendered love. In our modern society charity has more of the meaning of giving money to help the poor. Most bible-believing preachers would point this out to their congregations.
In the ‘good old days’ there was one Bible and many churches. Today there is a move towards one church and many Bibles – to the detriment of both.
English, as we said before, is not an easy language to learn, but it is well suited to carry the nuances of human thought. Its alphabet (from the Greek alpha and beta) has 26 letters. Here is a little challenge for you; Ezra 7:21 and Haggai 1:1 contains all the letters but one. Read both verses carefully to find out which letter is missing.
THREE IMMEASURABLE THINGS
The book of Psalms is the Alps of the Bible being filled with spiritual mountain peaks. Psalm 103 is undoubtably one of those high points. Apart from many other wonderful truths it contains three things which cannot be measured that are a blessing to the human soul.
It speaks of the mercy of God being “as high as the heaven above the earth” [v 11]. You can measure how high a tree, cloud or airplane is, but you cannot measure how high the heaven is.
Our sins have been removed as “far as the east is from the west” [v 12]. You can measure north to south because of the poles. But there is no east or west point.
The mercy of the Lord “is from everlasting to everlasting” [v 17]. Again, immeasurable. Let us thank God for His infinite mercy that removes our sins an immeasurable distance.
