This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.
On its journey from Byzantium to Constantinople to Istanbul, this special place helps us understand the broader arc of Christian history, which goes on until Christ's return.
We needn’t fear statistics and studies as palm readings into a certain future. God is God, and his Spirit is alive through his Word.

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The hope of Scripture is the glad tidings of the Lord’s “sudden and miraculous grace” which reverses the catastrophes of Eden.
The absolute best part of Christmas is that it is not flat at all, but in fact, it is very tall.
Christmas is a tremendous opportunity to make known the good news of great joy, but this opportunity is squandered when the Word isn’t heard on account of the predictability of the proclamation.
At the center of this gospel reading is a conversation. It was of the memorable variety. It involved a peasant girl from a small town and a mighty messenger from God.
This is Christmas. It is Jesus becoming all sin from generation to generation.
We do not believe that the virgin mother bore a son and that he is the Lord and Savior unless I believe the second thing, that he is my Savior and Lord.
God sent his Son down into the hidden places of our dark and dirty world to find us, and to the cross to wipe away our sins forever. That is what this story is all about.
In a year where things are unclear, tensions are heartbreaking, and uncertainty is rampant, what can we be thankful for?
Because everything we possess, and everything in heaven and on earth besides, is daily given, sustained, and protected by God, it inevitably follows that we are in duty bound to love, praise, and thank him without ceasing
We stand before God with a unique set of problems, diseases, and sins. The comforting truth of the Incarnation is that Jesus took my flesh. All of it.
God created humanity in his image and then inhabited that image. Not just for 33 years, but for eternity thereafter.
God is not an impassive monster who is unfamiliar with our horrendous ailments. Rather, in Christ, God familiarizes himself with our suffering and becomes particularly attuned to the fragility of fallen humanity.