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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His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
“So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
While they speak on various aspects of the preaching task, these essays share a unity in their authors’ commitment to the fact that the preaching of Jesus Christ is not simply motivational, informational, or inspirational; it is the delivery of God’s promise into the ears of those who if left to themselves are deaf to the Creator’s voice.
Regardless of why they happen, sermon flops do happen to all of us. So, what should you do next?
Who would ever want all these screamers and haters? It turns out that Christ does.
For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of him who works.
For Christians, Advent is the time when the Church patiently prepares for the coming of the Great King, Jesus the Christ.
The Church stands firm on the word of promise that Christ will one day return to change what we know by faith into sight.
The epistle text from Colossians 1 declares how the great drama of redemption and human history ends.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.