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 same can be said of the Reformation. I have often heard both Roman Catholic and Lutheran brothers and sisters bemoan the celebration of the Reformation.
True freedom, Luther discovered, is found in Jesus crucified who sets us free.
What follows is a brief examination of each of these five theological slogans.
I often dance around the idea of denominations. I've been Pentecostal and I guess Evangelical.
Have you ever really thought about how crazy your salvation is? You may have never thought of it in those terms, but truly, your redemption and rescue from eternal damnation is a jarring truth, one that should spawn tears of joy and shouts of praise.
In our time Christ has not left us bereft of unbroken signs of His promised return.
They were incapable of covering their shame. They knew what they'd done was evil, but since they were only "like" God, there was no way for them to go back and replace evil with good.
Christians are Christians not because of anything that they have done but because of everything Christ has done for them.
A significant election is quickly approaching. A candidate will be chosen to hold the highest office in our nation.
Many Christians (including preachers) have succumbed to the idea that good preaching must be about practical living, and so most sermons are geared to scratch this pragmatic itch.
Read your life like a Hebrew, from the end to the beginning, and you will see that the last is first. The dead are alive, the cursed are blessed, the humble are exalted.
We who fall within the Protestant camp of Christianity have longstanding issues with ritual. I get that. Ritual is often abused. Idolatrized. It can easily devolve into a hollow act of religious farce.