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 disciples and Christ have just finished their last meal together. The disciples, of course, didn't know this, but Jesus did.
There is something about high art forms that touches the soul.
What makes a meal more than food? We all have important meals in our lives; birthday meals; anniversary meals; traditional holiday meals.
Jesus is the great Houdini of the grave for us. And through His death, He gives us the Great Escape from death that leads to the great joy of the Resurrection.
In elementary school, children are taught that America was a destination for Christians in search of religious freedom. But that’s not the truth.
You have been invited to bring God’s grace to people who are dying for want of it.
God’s telling a joke. And after we’re done laughing at this silly divinity, we realize that the true joke is on us.
The greatest joy of Lent is failing at it only to find Jesus has already done it for us.
God’s grace and freedom announces the truth to us about ourselves. We need a real Savior.
Whenever I read the Genesis account of Abraham, I’m more impressed that he’s often a clumsy, mess of a man than that it’s “faith that’s accounted to him as righteousness.”
The victory of Christ is hidden in the crosses we bear as Christians following Him to our own personal Golgothas.
God is for us in His foolish, scarred Word and Wisdom. Nothing is against us, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.