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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Despite our best efforts to avoid him, King Jesus remains very much unavoidable.
The king has arrived and has already begun his reign forever and ever.
God the Father sent us – his wayward, sinful, and naughty children – his own series of Father Christmas Letters.
To trust in the Lord, the Messiah, the Deliverer, is our salvation and our only hope. Yet he does not trust us to have this “trust” on our own or of our own will.
Psalm 8 is a trailer for the entire biblical movie, and the entire biblical movie centers on Christ.
Who would ever want all these screamers and haters? It turns out that Christ does.
Take courage, you who were lost: Jesus comes to seek and save that which is lost. Ye sick, return to health: Christ comes to heal the contrite of heart with the balm of his mercy. Rejoice, all you who desire great things: the Son of God comes down to you that he may make you the co-heirs of his kingdom.
Rejoice with Mary as she would rejoice with you. Be blessed, like her, with humility from God, so that you may serve joyfully and willingly wherever and in whatever role God has placed you.
Hains offers a novel yet simple contention: Luther is most catholic where he is boldest.
In whatever direction the bias of men might be, from thence he might recall them, and teach them of his own true Father, as he himself says: I came to save and to find that which was lost.
By his first Advent in the flesh, through his second Advent with bread and wine and water and Word, we await his third Advent at the end.
We will not become hopeless because the Lord is with us.