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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The truth is that no amount of self-awareness will ever be enough; in fact, the more we seek after ourselves, the more inwardly bent we become.
How many of you Christians out there are barely holding it together? I know the inclination should be towards joy and hope, but for some of us, it's not.
We have at least one thing going for us: we know the first of these two days —our birthday.
He comes to fill our old, stony heart with the new wine of his forgiveness.
My nonfiction reads took me into Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and various varieties of Protestantism. Some of my favorites didn’t fall into neat and tidy categories, such as Jordan Peterson and Richard Selzer. It was difficult to narrow the list down, but here are my 12 1/2 favorites of the year.
Consolation is the breath of life filling our lungs, hearts, and minds with the fresh, incorruptible air of the new creation.
It is only when individuals are bound together in community that they become fully human.
Here is a lament I’ve written especially for victims of hurricanes. May it be for you, for your family, or for your church, a way to put into prayer the anguish of your souls.
Can there be joy in obedience? That depends on if obedience if a free choice or the result of threats.
Much like Jacob wrestling with God in the desert, we find our intellectual hips continuously put out of joint as we engage the culture around us.
The author, Flannery O'Connor, said, "All I can say about my love of God is, Lord help me in my lack of it."
And your life, weary and broken as it is, is hidden by God in Christ—tucked away in God’s enduring and eternally given Word, in Jesus.