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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The dying words of Jesus were not, “Make it worth it,” but “It is finished.”
There is no pain like the pain of being mistreated by those who, above all others, you expect to love you unconditionally.
What we see in the face of this God is not a loathing expression. We find the face of a compassionate man who knew all about shame himself.
No, when the Lord is ready for battle, of all creatures, he commissions Mary’s little lamb.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
I became like God’s child David, whom the Lord pardoned of his adultery and murder. I became like Noah, Abraham, Judah, Aaron, Gideon, and so many more wayward children.
God cannot love me unconditionally without prerequisites, especially after all I’ve done, can He?
Stephen Fry, the English actor, author and game show host once disparaged the “grammar Nazis” who felt it necessary to enforce all the rules of language but who had forgotten, or just didn’t care, about the joy of language.
Take away the water, words, bread and wine. Can you be a Christian without water, words, bread and wine?
We're of little faith. Or rather, we have big faith, but it’s in something else. Our faith is in our ability to control situations, manipulate them to our advantage.
I'm in the middle of a series on Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
Faith does not require that we always Hoorah what the Lord does. God wants children, not brown-nosers.