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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God's power and works are awesome and cannot be stifled. His grace and mercy will be heard above the growls and howls of those who deny Christ Jesus is God and Savior
Men and women are all caught in the universal machine of suffering that chews people up and spits them out. And in their respective griefs and fears, they are all wondering if God sees them, hears them, knows them.
Our only claim to fame is that we have been claimed by a God who is consistently drawn to losers!
The church’s song goes on and on, singing and ringing down to us today.
Christ has received the mark of law that we might be marked with the gospel, with the sign of his holy cross on our heads and hearts as redeemed children of God.
This Christmas season we are thankful that even though we “fallers” are unable to climb up to God, he came down the ladder to us.
He also took our own history and suffered all the agony and pain of our own lives.
“The days are coming,” and God said it. God, who kept his promise that Christ would come at Christmas.
It is in your lows where Christ has hidden his highest high, eternal life itself.
What do Habakkuk and Israel have? Nothing but the word of God. Nothing but the promise of God. Nothing but God himself.
One could reason that God might, at least, give the church a little worldly power.
While the insights in each chapter are uniquely personal to the individual writers, the overarching theme is one of the sufficiency of Christ.