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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Though envy whispers to us that peace can only be found by “keeping up,” Jesus whispers to us a better word: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
In Defense of Christian Ritual is now available for purchase from 1517 Publishing
There is joy in Lent, but it is the kind of joy that comes in being made whole.
In schools and on barstools and in delis and where two or three gather, your Savior turns you loose to encounter those who are delightful and loveable.
Different groups within Christianity disagree as to whether Jesus should be depicted in icons, crucifixes, paintings, or other visual media. In this article, Chad Bird approaches the question from the angle of both the commandments and the incarnation.
Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance breaks through sorrow and worry; such trust pours joy into the way we think and the way we experience life.
John T. Pless has prepared a midweek Lenten sermon series that will fix our eyes on the saving work of the triune God. Based on Martin Luther’s hymn “Dear Christians One and All Rejoice,” this series will provide preachers an opportunity to proclaim the saving work of God to their hearers throughout the season of Lent.
What more could God do to prove to us that he is for us and not against us than to give his own Son into this fallen world to take the cross in our place, exchanging his righteousness for our many sins.
Christmas-time is the bold proclamation that God was born to save sinners.
God's Word is the final word on you, and his claim on you as his people, his children, is the ultimate claim.
We begin in ignorance and we end in ignorance. But, in the midst of our ignorance, Jesus is walking with us.
Here is Paul’s repacking of the Christmas gift in terms of the personal and corporate implications of God so loving the world that He gave His only begotten Son.