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 is holy, nothing I say or do or pray is going to make God any more or less holy. So what are we praying when we say, “hallowed be your name”?
This is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), written by Martin Luther and translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).
Jesus overcame sin, death, and Satan on the cross. His bloody suffering and death marked this sinful world's defeat.
If you get out your red-letter bible and just read the red letters, as I did today, you're in for a shock. When you read just his words, Jesus seems harsh and pretty ticked off most of the time!
Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
Jesus has the best Dad ever, but He doesn’t keep His Dad all to himself. Jesus shares His Heavenly Father with everyone who believes in Him.
Unlike human marriage, which is marred by sin, Jesus never seeks to divorce us due to irreconcilable differences.
As we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray to God our Father. We come to him as his children, adopted into his family. We pray to our Father who loves us perfectly.
This is an excerpt from “Unveiling Mercy: 365 Daily Devotions Based on Insights from Old Testament Hebrew” written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2020). Used with permission.
Christians are in a unique position to show the world something truly other-worldly. We are free from living in our world as if it contained all there is.
How we define holiness will affect our approach to God.
The love God showed for us in the death of his Son continues in us because we remain his children as long as we are incorporated in the body of Jesus through faith.