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 Church is where God has instituted the office of the preacher of the gospel. And if you are let-down, the gospel is what you need to hear.
This tiny rural church would bulge at the seams with worshipers from realms seen and unseen, all mixed together in the adoration of the Lamb.
We do not have to endure the pain and suffering of this fallen existence forever, just for a little while.
The good news is Christ Jesus is faithful to the end, even to the point of death and through death, with a steadfast and vocal faith in God our Savior for those who cannot do so in their lives any longer on account of their altered state.
God’s love is axiomatic; it just is. It’s a truism without a logical explanation.
The acquisition of salvation, the giving of salvation, and the keeping of salvation are entirely dependent upon the Savior himself.
The only one rightful heir of the kingdom of God, inherits from us, our cross, and descends into the kingdom of the damned.
The giver of life, the source of joy, stands weeping together with the human family as they grieve under the curse of sin.
We can not give our Heavenly Father anything that will make him love us more or less. He gives and we receive.
Take away the communal aspect, take away the communal gathering around Christ’s body and blood, and the Christian will begin to suffer a malnutrition of faith.
God invites you to confess the skeletons in your closet so that he might bury them in the grave for good.
The story of Juneteenth is one of living between proclamation and emancipation, and the story of the Christian faith is one of living in that same tension.