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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I can pretend for a little bit, but as soon as the phone is put away and it’s just me and my sin, I am fearful about what my walk says about me. I know what I should do, but I can’t quite seem to do it.
You may have seen the uproar from a recent blog post suggesting that virgins who forego college, learn to cook big meals and abstain from tattoos make more desirable wives.
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.
God is the God of failures, for He became one for you. There is no failure of ours that is bigger than Jesus’ cross, no sin of ours that can overshadow the cross.
Nicodemus, like us, does not really have phantoms and dragons in his head. He has just one demon, one virus, one malady: he lives in fear.
God’s telling a joke. And after we’re done laughing at this silly divinity, we realize that the true joke is on us.
We all look forward to Lent’s conclusion and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday. This is the Sunday of victory and joy as the Church enters into the reality that Christ has defeated death and hell, declared victory over such enemies and set history on its final course of consummation.
How does that sit with you? It frightens me. Naked, exposed in the eyes of the One to Whom I must give account?
Only the poor are in need of a Savior, and only the dead need faith, hope, and love delivered to them by the hand of the Almighty.
“Putting hope in the cross of Christ means putting hope outside of anything – mentally, physically or even spiritually – you do.”
We are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Losers set free to trust in God’s promises.
Luther contends that even our best spiritual, theological, and moral efforts are insufficient to save us.