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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Our only hope in life and death is that God loves sinners, who fail and forget constantly, with a love that is just as constant.
As astounding as co-eternity and co-equality with the Father in majesty and glory is, this is not the most significant answer Jesus gave in this Gospel reading, not for us at least.
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Pentecost is a flashback. It drives us back to the past. It also propels us forward into the future.
If you want something empty, the tomb is the way to go. The point of the manger is that Jesus was in it. The point of the cross is that Jesus was on it.
Your loving Lord is not oblivious to your pain and sadness.
1517 would not exist without the leadership, friendship, and faithfulness of Pastor Ron Hodel.
There is someone outside of I, someone outside of you, that our faith and hope is in.
So, we pray. Not just in times of need, but we pray at all times. Because this is part of what it means to be saved.
Jesus opens for us a way to walk through suffering and to sing our song of salvation as we talk to our heavenly Father.
Make no mistake, sinners are in fact being pursued by a most hideous beast called sin, death, and the devil, unleashed and striking continuously.
What we have in our reading is a picture of how God deals with a lack of understanding.