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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Christ is the beating heart of Christian faith and its only object.
Instead of a “how-to” manual, the Bible is a “what-you-didn’t-do” story.
What do we learn from the widow? We learn how to be dependent upon God.
Christ is always the ultimate for God's children, but we sometimes struggle with things that come before.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
Show me a sinner, and I’ll write you a story of a God who saves them.
No matter how many times we hear this good news, it never stops being good news.
Our faith is precisely where Paul puts it, namely, in the blood of Christ.
Just as trick-or-treaters arrive at doorsteps as beggars, we come to the Lord’s table with nothing to offer but our sin and need for forgiveness.
Luther understood that music is an exceptional teaching tool.
Salvation doesn’t hang in the balance of a voting booth.
The difference between God's gospel and man's could not be greater.