WESTERN WISDOM Season 4, Episode 06 "Ready for Battle" audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly, Circa 1995. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
"Are You Ready For Battle?" blog post article found here: https://www.blybooks.com/2022/06/ready-for-battle/
Sign Up on BlyBooks.com on blog page to receive RSS feed by email for podcast blog notices. Related blog article with podcast embed will arrive every Tuesday and Thursday. Look to the right of the LINK PAGE for “Subscribe to the Blog via Email” and “Enter your email address”.
Would greatly appreciate if you a) SUBSCRIBE, b) RATE, c) REVIEW the podcast.
PODCAST WEBSITE URL: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1777501
FULL PODCAST INFO: https://bit.ly/3xCxckS
Music by WinkingFoxMusic from Pixabay
Related blog article email link with podcast embed most every week.
This podcast always free but donations welcome to cover costs.
Send to PayPal at janet@blybooks.com
Bly Books Website: https://www.blybooks.com
READY FOR BATTLE
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
One of the unexpected pleasures of writing western novels includes the nice letters from men and women, boys and girls who enjoy a good story from the Old West. From time to time, they write to ask questions or give advice about my historical errors. I enjoy all the letters.
Recently a young man from Saskatchewan, Canada wrote to remind me that the western part of his country was still called the British possession in the 1870s. I appreciated that. He also asked why I had my hero carry a Colt .44 revolver instead of a .45 caliber model.
“Wouldn’t he have wanted a bigger bullet?” the young man asked.
Well, my heroes like Tap Andrews and Stuart Brannon are very pragmatic fellows. In my opinion the best carbine or rifle in those days was the Winchester ’73. I also believe the best handgun was the Colt Peacemaker.
Now, the Winchester ’73 fired a .44/.43 bullet. And you could also purchase a Colt .44 that used that same cartridge. That means you only had one cartridge to buy, which would have cost about $20 per thousand rounds in those days. Or more likely, you only had one type of cartridge to reload.
If you were expecting to have to use your gun very often, it sure made sense not to carry two different kinds of bullets in your belt. And since my heroes have to always be ready for battle, they carry Winchester ‘73s and Colt .44s.
Now, it seems to me we ought to be ready for battle nowadays too. Oh, we don’t normally need to carry Winchesters and Colts, but what we need are the weapons to be used in any spiritual assault that is taking place in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our churches, and in our cities.
Paul says he is ready for battle with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and the left. Now, that’s a picture of a two-fisted fighter ready for battle. He also tells us that the weapon in hand should be the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. In other words, armed with the Word of God, which we have memorized and put into practice in our lives, you and I become pragmatic, efficient, and spiritual fighters, ready to do battle when we are needed.
That’s kind of like the Old West lawman who carried a Winchester ’73 and a Colt .44.