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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This is the second installment in our special series on Luther’s, Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 3 and 4 done by Caleb Keith.
Each week, we will reflect on a few of the theses leading up to this year’s Here We Still Stand Conference in October. Each post will also include a new translation completed by Caleb Keith.
In the tiny Bible-belt town where I grew up, tragedy brought people together.
Life is certainly unfair. But in Christ, at least in part, we rejoice at such a notion. Grace, that great descriptor of God’s devotion, is a word that only finds its purpose, only exists at all, because it exists as a response to guilt.
You may have seen the uproar from a recent blog post suggesting that virgins who forego college, learn to cook big meals and abstain from tattoos make more desirable wives.
God is the God of failures, for He became one for you. There is no failure of ours that is bigger than Jesus’ cross, no sin of ours that can overshadow the cross.
Nicodemus, like us, does not really have phantoms and dragons in his head. He has just one demon, one virus, one malady: he lives in fear.
There are a few occasions in the Bible where the curtain lifts, and we get to peer into the inner workings of the Divine Court.
From the untouchable living on the streets of India to the millionaire in Manhattan; from the farmer in Germany to the escort in Vegas; from the missionary in Argentina to the bartender in Ireland—they are all in the love zone of the Lord. Every. Single. One.
As a woman who has suffered years of abuse, there have been times in my new life when I have found myself living out Psalm 6:6.
Jesus, Who is truly God, became a regular Joe (or Joshua as the case may be) for us.
God’s telling a joke. And after we’re done laughing at this silly divinity, we realize that the true joke is on us.