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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There’s something very attractive about both the cross-ladder and the cross-crutches. In fact, there’s something about both of them that the woodworker within us finds eminently more appealing than the simple cross of Jesus.
Standing before Jesus is one of the cultural groups that the Lord sought fit to eradicate for their wickedness to preserve the line that would eventually birth Jesus.
We were created by our heavenly Father to receive all things from Him as free gift.
Ultimately, however, we find in the Heidelberg Disputation the root and core of Luther’s theology, which he would build and expound upon throughout his life.
As long as we hold tight to a life that was never ours to possess in the first place, so long as we refuse to lay down our life so others can live, Jesus can't do a thing for us.
When our sense of alienation from God is underscored and exaggerated by daily life we behave like tropical fish when their tank is cleaned.
This coming Sunday churches around the world will celebrate the big, splashy day of Pentecost. As well they should.
Jesus is faithful even when we are faithless. He is our Strength, and Song, and Salvation. He's all this for us because He is God, and God is love.
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.
They were incapable of covering their shame. They knew what they'd done was evil, but since they were only "like" God, there was no way for them to go back and replace evil with good.
As the story unfolds we see Luther’s Heidelberg theses on display, even before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
You cannot fudge Glory in this life. You get there only on the Better Day that is coming and not one day before.