The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
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.

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“Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.” Those nine words could serve as the Bible’s subtitle.
As we do in daily life, so we have done in our reading of the Bible: we have placed ourselves at the center, and Christ at the periphery.
Jesus and the New Testament—good. Yahweh and the Old Testament—not really so good. So goes the popular, but largely whispered, dichotomy.
Contrary to what pop-psychology, social media memes, and your sweet grandmother told you, you are not fine just the way you are.
It is a strange irony, but in a world drunk on violence, it is only on the cross of violence that there is hope for peace in our world.
These treasures show us that, no matter how well we think we know this poem, there’s always more layers to uncover.
It’s no wonder we’re so attached to images; we are one. We are human hyphens between the celestial and the terrestrial.
In the church, the main actor in worship is not the Christian but Christ.
In this religious Sodom, we had a Jesus with the heart of Moses whose gospel was a new and improved law.
As important as the training of your children is, much more important is handing them over to God—from the very beginning, from infancy, and beyond.
Imagine yourself at an advanced age. What do you want to remember when you’ve forgotten virtually everything else? Sing that.
Three of the most profound truths embedded in the fabric of the universe are that blood has a voice, blood cries out to God, and blood is heard by heaven.