The Friday Post this week

OK: usually we have the next part of the Christmas series, or some other exhortation for you faithful readers to go into the weekend preparing yourselves for worship and the word.

I have something different today. Some of you (I don't keep a counter there because I don't do that for the fame and fortune) have been reading the DebateBlog exchange with Jodie about the matter of what James really said and really meant in regard to faith and works. Who knew that James didn't really mean "save" when he said "save your soul"? It was news to me, I assure you.

Anyway, she provided this link to pdf about what it meant in the OT when the word "saved" came up -- and what do you know: the OT, apparently, never meant soteriological salvation when it said "saved", either. So when Ps 18 says, "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold," and from that we sing, "A Mi-Tee FO-o-tress i-is Our God! A Bulwark Ne-ver fa-a-ay-ling!" nobody is actually talking about salvation.

That con-sarned Luther and his theological hyjinx! How shall we ever be rid of him and them?

You think about that briefly, and then shake it off and be with God's people in God's house on His day. I'm narrating our Christmas cantata (that's an uptown way to say, "we're gonna sing real good to recorded fiddle playin'") on Sunday -- God willing it will bless the hearers.

UPDATED: ah, shoot. Read this link too.