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 title “peacemakers” is not ours except as we tell and retell his peacemaking story.
The Old Testament is a long, strange book that’s not easy for modern readers to understand. What is understandable, therefore, is that people can get lost and confused when studying it. Here are three common misconceptions about it.
God will give you more than you can handle. But he doesn’t leave you alone. Not at all.
The reason the mind is endlessly troubled about God predestining everything is the vague generalization. Generalizations are cold as ice, without the warm Christ.
The Psalms aren’t the clandestine successes of a faithful soul, but are the journaled hopes of a desperate soul — of one teetering on the edge of oblivion.
We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
The Church is where God has instituted the office of the preacher of the gospel. And if you are let-down, the gospel is what you need to hear.
This tiny rural church would bulge at the seams with worshipers from realms seen and unseen, all mixed together in the adoration of the Lamb.
Ascertaining the what and how of the Church greatly factor into the very purpose of the Church, that is, they essentially answer the question why the Church?
Through the often abominable and lamentable and occasional commendable season, there is one who remains unmoved by it all.
The Christ Key: Unlocking the Centrality of Christ in the Old Testament by Chad Bird is now available to order
We do not have to endure the pain and suffering of this fallen existence forever, just for a little while.