The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
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.

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Jesus overcame sin, death, and Satan on the cross. His bloody suffering and death marked this sinful world's defeat.
Faithful preachers should remain steadfast in the biblical categories and terminology and preach the reality of death.
God uses the fifth commandment to protect us from selfishness, prevent us from only thinking about our needs, and to drive us to Christ and our neighbors.
Jesus will strengthen and encourage us because he is true life, and life has defeated death.
This is an excerpt from “Crucifying Religion” written by Donavon Riley (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Predestination is a promising teaching as Paul teaches it in Romans 8. It’s promising when Christ and his work for us are held firmly in hand.
The fact that baptism specifically unites me to Christ in his death means that I share in his sufferings in my identity, not in my activity.
In both Psalms, we hear the Messiah becoming sin for us, and thus he pleads on our behalf before the Father
There is a power that is stronger and mightier than the power of separation in death. And that power is the power of God’s love for you and me.
Your prayers are not what make you acceptable in his sight. You have already been made acceptable through the blood of Christ.
He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters, even as we curse and yell at him for not pleasing us with our pettish wishes.
God created humanity in his image and then inhabited that image. Not just for 33 years, but for eternity thereafter.