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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Excerpt #2 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
The problem with sin is that we fail to honor God who wants to take our hearts captive and fill us with his goodness.
I finally watched the film “Encanto” with my kids. I had heard many people say the subtext of this movie was deeper than most. So, we snuggled up on the couch and watched it to see what everyone was talking about.
Excerpt #1 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
God’s design in the Law is to enable man to know himself; to perceive the false and unjustified state of his heart; to discover how far he is from God and to disdain his own goodness.
Because Jesus has set us free, we enjoy a freedom of movement in His world, under His grace, that loosens our tongues to sing His praise.
Aquinas would craft a systematic theology that did with the matter of faith what Aristotle had done with the natural world.
Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.
Below is a compilation of some of our contributors and editors favorite theology books published in 2021. We hope these can be a resource for each of you as we begin 2022!
Christ is present in the pure preaching of the gospel. And if Christ is present, then we have entered into the domain of the sacraments.
Faith should later again flow forth from our heart’s depths to our neighbor freely and unhindered in good works; not that we wish to rest our salvation in them; for God will not have that, but wishes the conscience to rest in himself alone.
What we are asked to believe as we ponder the birth of this child is that in his coming, a new creation has dawned.