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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Dispel some of that darkness bottled up inside you, with the grace first shared to us by Christ that is now ours to share with those around us.
The gospel is for sinners – both the tax collector and Pharisee, both in need of the Great Physician.
For you who are struggling to navigate grief, to cope with pain, or breathe through anxiety, the gospel announces that there is a person whose heart throbs for you.
Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”
Heaven is yours now.
St. Patrick was great but only because he was a slave to Christ.
Patrick's breakthrough came when he began to leverage his knowledge of the native language and customs to build a bridge between Irish lore and the Christian mythos.
We are not pursuing dragons; we are the dragons. We are, all of us, Eustace Scrubb.
This is the sound of freedom. The Eternal One died so that we who are dying might live eternally with him.
We are the fruit that grows from the branch, which extends from the trunk of the tree, which is rooted in the soil that it grows out of, which is all Christ.
He was rooted in his own tradition but gracious with others when they wanted to learn about his faith or their own.