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.

All Articles

What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
As disciples of Jesus, our righteousness cannot be performed before others, because our righteousness was already performed by Jesus.
Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.
That great truth of creedal Christianity – that God is man in Christ – is not set forth for our speculative enjoyment.
Hains offers a novel yet simple contention: Luther is most catholic where he is boldest.
Whatever else may be said of Advent, it is above all devoted to making Christ known as the Lord who condescends to come as Brother to and Savior of sinners.
If a key part of the Reformation was placing God’s Word back into the hands of the people in a clear, understandable way, then John of Ragusa can be called a “Prometheus” in his own right.
When the Reformers read the Bible (especially when studied in the original languages), they found a God who was gracious and merciful for the sake of Christ.