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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It's one thing to hope for a new reality; it's quite another to stand before it, no matter how wonderful.
Dave weaves together music, movies, and documentaries to illustrate all the ways we seek relief—and then, full and free, he connects our need to Christ’s gift.
While I disagree with many things Francis did and believed, I think he deserves credit for this: Francis showed us what Christian leadership can look like.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
In the upside-down wisdom of God, the place of the cross becomes the place of life, absolution, and triumph.
There is no one — not now, not ever — who cannot be included in the family of God through the efficacy of Christ’s saving power.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
No amount of ritual, sacrifice, devotion, or money could ever do what Jesus of Nazareth was sent to accomplish.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
Let your soul grieve, yes, but don’t let it be eaten alive by worry.
What is it about the cross and its embrace of shame that informs and inspires Christians, who, for various reasons, might find themselves inscribed by shame, to no longer be shameful?
Dr. Montgomery taught me the Christian faith is both a true story and a delightful story—in fact, it is the greatest story ever told.