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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The Son of God is still God the Son in the Incarnation.
Martha’s pain is not met by a to-do list. Jesus’ reply is not that she should try harder or change her behavior
God has in fact executed his plans for his people, plans of peace (probably a better translation than welfare), a future, and a hope in Jesus Christ.
The goal of language in the mouth of a Christian isn’t to hold power for ourselves but to give it.
The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
In a time of unknown, the Flanigans found comfort in the words of the prayer book and made them truly their own.
We do not live in the greatness of our own deeds. We boast in the greatness of one deed that God himself has done through Jesus Christ on the cross.
God picks the unexpected and the unlikely, and goes to the unforeseen places, stacking the odds against himself, in order that age after age might stand in open-mouthed wonder at his sovereignty in and over all things.
Green is the color for “ordinary time” in the liturgical church year. It's the regular time of year that always gets overshadowed by other seasons such as Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.
For sinners who cannot seem to get out of their own way, Dane brings to bear the gospel of Christ’s heart, which aerates one’s spiritual lungs with undiluted grace.
God will give you more than you can handle. But he doesn’t leave you alone. Not at all.
Ascertaining the what and how of the Church greatly factor into the very purpose of the Church, that is, they essentially answer the question why the Church?