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 is joy in Lent, but it is the kind of joy that comes in being made whole.
To a world enslaved to time (because it has no future), the Church's disregard for clocks and calendars is ridiculous.
The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the Man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order. A man got us into this mess; the Man would get it out again.
God's justice is marked and measured by sacrificial love, not power as the world defines it.
Preaching the end times purposes to solicit and strengthen faith in the Savior of the world who is at the same time the Creator and Re-creator of the world.
Faithful preachers should remain steadfast in the biblical categories and terminology and preach the reality of death.
Mindful that the pagans’ understanding of death is a finality, Paul says, “NO!” Death is not the end of humanity in God’s new world.
This is an excerpt from the book, “Paul and the Resurrection” written by Joshua Pagán (1517 Publishing, 2020).
Resurrection is victory. God shall arise! Christ has risen! However, this is not the sum of the LORD’s provision for the people.
Why is there a need to replace Judas? The reason revolves around the number twelve.
This pericope is not merely for the anxious, the persecuted, and the humbled. It is also for the self-reliant, confident and accomplished because at one time or another, they too will be anxious, persecuted, and humbled.
A wonderful intimacy, eternal and beyond our understanding, lies beneath the surface of these words. What is even more wonderful is how this intimacy is also ours. Through the saving work of Jesus, this intimacy is extended unto us.