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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Lent is a gift to the Church from the Church. It belongs to all Christians who desire to be conformed to the likeness of our Lord.
The Promise Land's true value is in the gift of Jesus who will provide His blood and very life to endow all people with forgiveness and everlasting life for His children.
Nearly two thousand years after Paul scribbled out these lines, the only reason “we” are here, reading Paul’s magnum opus together, is that we are inheritors of the promise Paul sees in the paradox.
As the greater and more faithful Son of God, Jesus did what the Israelites could not do. Neither can we.
Excerpt #3 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
I may feel today that the Lord has not found me, but in fact he has – he is intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Excerpt #2 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
Excerpt #1 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
The world we inhabit is wrong in so many ways, and a holistic approach to this “wrongness” traces its cause both to sin itself and to the effects of sin.
Even for idolatrous sellouts like you and me, God’s position has not changed. Even though we may have forgotten him, he never forgets us.
Is the serpent in Genesis 3 just a snake or Satan? Does the Hebrew refer to "the satan" or "Satan"? And does it make a difference? Let's take a look at the Old Testament, early Jewish literature, and the New Testament for the answers.
At its heart, this is what Deacon King Kong is all about: the paradox of Jesus carving his victory out of the last thing we expect, not our triumphs but our defeats.