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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Have you ever grown despondent from trying so hard to stop behaving in certain destructive ways, but always failing?
Sometimes we try be the bad god, sometimes the good god, oftentimes a freaky hybrid of both. The result is the same: Jesus the savior just gets in our way.
A while back, my wife and I attended the wake and memorial service of a friend from a prior church we attended.
Can the chain of cause and effect extend infinitely?
I have the easiest time remembering all the good things I have done. How I was kind in the face of anger.
It was Jesus who appeared to Hagar, comforted her, and gave her the promise of future blessings. It was Jesus who came to her when it seemed everything and everyone else had let her down.
Duke is my dog-in-training; although, sometimes I suspect I am actually his person-in-training. Regardless, we have both been learning a lot.
The church is God’s flock. Jesus is both a lion and a lamb. The zoo turns out to be as packed with theology as a seminary, if not more.
I often dance around the idea of denominations. I've been Pentecostal and I guess Evangelical.
Have you ever really thought about how crazy your salvation is? You may have never thought of it in those terms, but truly, your redemption and rescue from eternal damnation is a jarring truth, one that should spawn tears of joy and shouts of praise.
In our time Christ has not left us bereft of unbroken signs of His promised return.
Over and over, generation after generation, sinners repeat the same mistake. "How is it possible that God can be a man," we ask.