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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Pelagius maintained an orthodox appearance while rejecting original sin and the distinction between law and gospel.
The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw" written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
One moment, we pray for our rescue from sin and death. The next moment, we beg our Father to do unto others what we hope he will never do to us.
Should we really be surprised that it would happen this way, that the servant would suffer for our salvation and die for our forgiveness?
At Christmas, we hear the story of our salvation, but it’s not pretty.
JFK was not the only national figure who died on November 11, 1963. Though his death certainly took up most of the headlines, the acclaimed writers C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley also died that day as well.
So long as we entrust death to Jesus, new life is ours. He has lunch ready and he is waiting for us in the power of his resurrection.
We expect the world to shoot its wounded. But not even the world expects Christians to shoot their wounded.
Forgiveness, not love, can restore a relationship that’s top-heavy with negative emotions.
By pouring out his life unto death, Jesus reverses our death.
The danger of denying the truth of our common human fallenness and brokenness by original sin is that the denial of this doctrine may also lead us to the denial of Christ as our Savior.
I had been taught and believed in a God who is love, but as I walked outside that night I did not see him. I saw the stars and I felt their indifference.