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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Paul wants us to see this “present evil age” is dominated by a theology of glory and “the age to come” is dominated by a theology of the cross. They are two ways of understanding and interpreting all of reality, but especially the ways and nature of God.
Jesus is not just another king in the line of David—this is the new King David! Hosanna in the highest!
There is joy in Lent, but it is the kind of joy that comes in being made whole.
Out of great pain and suffering often comes goodness, beauty, and truth. John Donne, born on the 22nd of January in 1573, is an excellent example of that for us in his masterful work, Death Be Not Proud.
This tale of two professors has a common theme, plot, and denouement - the good news of the one true story, Jesus Christ crucified for you.
This story of despair met with the hope of the gospel is rightly told by many during the holiday season.
St John of the Cross' feast day on December 14 commemorates the day of his death in 1591, at the height of the Catholic renewal movement that followed the Reformation.
Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
Christ crucified is at the heart of both our freedom from sin and death and our freedom to serve and love our neighbor.
After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again.
Viewing the Bible as literature is an essential and natural way of engaging the text. But there are also ways in which this practice can get lost.
Saying the words of the prayer together meant that if my voice became too weak or shaky, other voices would be around to support and continue the message.