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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In grace, God chooses to love his people.
This is the basic argument of To Gaze upon God: that we who now see as if behind a veil will one day enjoy the unveiled splendor of God himself, who will dwell with us forever.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.
Do our petitions move God?
Finding rest in God when the “what ifs”come calling
If Jesus did not rise, then religion is just religion — a mere anthropological phenomenon.