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.

All Articles

There is no other transitionary event in human history that warrants three full months of focused attention and persistent acknowledgment than the incarnation of the Son of God.
If Jesus is indeed the same yesterday, today, and forever, everything his enfleshment brings is already assured: life, salvation, and forgiveness.
In Advent we wait, in Christmas we rejoice over the coming of Christ in the fulfillment of the promises, and in Epiphany we celebrate the surprise, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.
Is it possible to celebrate Thanksgiving every time we come together as God’s people as well?
In Genesis 1-2, the Lord reveals—or, at a bare minimum, starts dropping some big hints—that he will be quite comfortable becoming a human being himself someday.
We give thanks to the Father who has made a way for us to sit at his table.
In the Lord’s Thanksgiving Supper, we are not served turkey, green bean casserole, and cornbread. We are served Christ.
Throughout the Scriptures, God puts "signs" or "seals" upon people. Often these are placed upon the forehead. How do all these connected stories take us from the mark of Cain, to the Exodus, to the cross, and finally to baptism?
That's how true faith talks. It doesn't talk about itself. It says "Thank you!" to the one who gives healing and salvation.
Thanksgiving utters a confession of dependence, an acknowledgement of the gift of something not earned or deserved.
“God in general” is of little use to all of us suffering the ravages of sin, the fear of death, and satanic prosecution.
Look the judge in the eye and pin your sin on Jesus, the divine judge’s son. Jesus knows you can’t do it, so he trades places with you and pits himself against God’s righteous demands.