What this retarded strain of Calvinism (which Calvin would scoff at) neglects to mention is that every song or hymn in Scripture was sung or played first, and only then recorded in Scripture. This very obvious point completely undermines the silly and prideful exclusive psalmodists.

A Good Friday Reading from Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In thee our fathers trusted; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. To thee they cried, and were saved; in thee they trusted, and were not disappointed....

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet— I can count all my bones— they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.

But thou, O Lord, be not far off! O thou my help, hasten to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen!

I will tell of thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee: You who fear the Lord, praise him! all you sons of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you sons of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hid his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.

From thee comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live for ever!

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.

Yea, to him shall all the proud of the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and he who cannot keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it.

A Holy Saturday Reading from Jonah 2:

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying,

"I called to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and thou didst hear my voice. For thou didst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me; all thy waves and thy billows passed over me.

Then I said, ‘I am cast out from thy presence; how shall I again look upon thy holy temple?’ The waters closed in over me, the deep was round about me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me for ever; yet thou didst bring up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God.

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to thee, into thy holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their true loyalty. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to thee; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”

And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

The Collect for Holy Saturday:

Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, so by continually mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him, and through the grave, and the gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection, for his merits, who died and was buried and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

But nowe is Christ risen from the dead, and was made the first fruites of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, euen so in Christ shall all be made aliue. (1 Cor. 15:20-22, GEN)

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

"And on the third day He rose again..." from Bach's Mass in B minor.

Today I learned Richard Wagner was baptized in St. Thomas Church, in Leipzig. This was the same church both J.S. Bach and Felix Mendelsohn had served as organist. Both this history and the name of the church, appear providential.

While many are familiar with Wagner's personal moral failings, particularly with women, at the close of his life, he appeared to go through a sort of conversion as he wrote Parsifal. He spent months attempting to convert the Jewish conductor who was working with him. He put away the last of his mistresses, and reconciled with his wife.

It seems to me he died in a state of grace and I expect his music to reverberate in the new creation.

I wil redeeme them from the power of the graue: I will deliuer them from death: O death, I wil be thy death: O graue, I will be thy destruction: repentance is hid from mine eyes.

-- The Prophet Hosea 13:14 (GEN)

I don't know if God rewards believers in Heaven for acts of bravery, but I imagine there's *something* like that

Shiloh Hendrix did nothing wrong.

A way for us to discern what to wear and what not to wear in clothing is by asking the question:
Would Jesus wear such a thing? and for women: Would the Virgin Mary wear such a thing?

^ One of the many lamentable effects of modern Protestants deprioritizing the Virgin Mary is destroying the primary model of female piety.

In their efforts to avoid being "too Catholic," these Protestants have unintentionally pushed women into looking to male models of piety, which has resulted in their inevitable feminization.

AI is demonic in the sense the Tower of Babel was demonic: man reaching for something which doesn't belong to him.

AI is not demonic in the way Saul having a medium call up Samuel was demonic.

Posing a question to ChatGPT is no different than posing a question to Google and then summarizing the top 5 search results in corporate-speak.

I heard an interesting argument the other day: US home values have not gotten more expensive per square foot after adjusted for income change. Let's run the numbers.

Comparison of 1980 vs 2023:

1) Median Household Income:
~$18,000 vs ~$80,000

2) Median Home Price:
~$65,000 vs ~$425,000

3) Median Square Footage:
~1,740 vs ~2,286

Price / Income Ratio: 3.61 vs 5.31.
2023 / 1980 Ratio: 5.31 / 3.61 = 1.47.
Sq. Ft. Delta Ratio: 2,286 / 1,740 = 1.31.

From this analysis, I think it's fair to say that 66% of the median price increase is due to larger median home size. I would speculate the remainder to be due to relaxed lending standards vs the 1980s, plus the huge but largely unknown impact of immigration.

Gen Z needs to realize buying the house their parents currently own is not a fair idea and is not what their parents did. My parents, for instance, lived in trailer park for much of their 20s and only later upgraded to a small suburban house, then a larger one.

If all Protestants were aggregated into a single institution, it would be no further right - and perhaps further left - than the Roman Catholic Church.

Many theology nerds of various stripes on both sides are more focused on winning theology debates with "facts and logic" than with opposing the demographic destruction of their churches.