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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In elementary school, children are taught that America was a destination for Christians in search of religious freedom. But that’s not the truth.
You have been invited to bring God’s grace to people who are dying for want of it.
God’s telling a joke. And after we’re done laughing at this silly divinity, we realize that the true joke is on us.
If there is no resurrection, then we have no true hope, and the arts above all vocations would be the folly of follies.
The greatest joy of Lent is failing at it only to find Jesus has already done it for us.
God’s grace and freedom announces the truth to us about ourselves. We need a real Savior.
Whenever I read the Genesis account of Abraham, I’m more impressed that he’s often a clumsy, mess of a man than that it’s “faith that’s accounted to him as righteousness.”
God is for us in His foolish, scarred Word and Wisdom. Nothing is against us, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Jesus went on ahead and took our cross, our sins of poor discipleship, our weak faith, our rebellion against God’s command.
The Law must attack because nothing outside of Christ can enter Heaven—nothing!
We all look forward to Lent’s conclusion and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday. This is the Sunday of victory and joy as the Church enters into the reality that Christ has defeated death and hell, declared victory over such enemies and set history on its final course of consummation.
Now, resurrection can only follow upon death. The good news is, it will!