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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Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.
God’s gifts, in turn, conform our minds to the mind of Christ, and catechize our imagination in the image of God’s Son.
This book is not in your hands so that we can simply commiserate with each other’s difficulties. It is meant to pierce your sin-darkened night with the light of God’s Word.
We cannot love first. Therefore God comes, takes hold of the heart, and says: "Learn to know me."
This is the patient love of God. He is stubborn about the salvation of sinners. He will not be rushed even if his name is mocked, and the trustworthiness of his promises are called into question.
There is perhaps no better observation about the nature of anxiety and depression than its fundamental desire for avoidance.
You might not know it, but every Christian hopes for the day when their faith will die. Really. I promise. Faith’s death is our celebration.
The imprecatory psalms are like release valves for hurting souls. Their stanzas are God-given spaces in which we can bear our soul’s torment.
Christians do have a hope that those who sleep in death will be awakened and their joy will never end, and we yearn for that day.
Love turns out to be not simply a thing or action, but a characteristic of God himself.
God’s candle is not so easily extinguished. His promise is not some vague light at the end of the tunnel that we may or may not reach. In fact, God’s light has a name: Jesus Christ.
The early biblical stories about Bethlehem are dark and violent. They wreck us. They frighten us. In this little town, we see a microcosm of the vast and mangled mass of humanity, each individual thirsty for even a single bead of light to be dropped into the blackened depths of their souls. He who is born in Bethlehem is that Light.