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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By his first Advent in the flesh, through his second Advent with bread and wine and water and Word, we await his third Advent at the end.
We will not become hopeless because the Lord is with us.
When the church is a political actor, the gospel doesn’t have the final word.
You are the friend in low places. It’s only from this place that you are free to look outside yourself for the remedy to the issues that plague you and humanity.
You are a child of God. You’re blameless, holy, perfect, and righteous. Don’t feel that way? Too bad. God is greater than your heart.
Weak faith in a strong Christ is still saving faith.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.
The good news is that with our God there is always more: more than we deserve, dare, ask, or expect, more than we can see, hear, feel, or think.
There is no true life and meaningful community apart from forgiveness.
Every incendiary move of God’s Spirit is accompanied by a group of penitent people rediscovering the power and preeminence of God’s Word.
The phrase “works of the law” has an antithesis when it comes to righteousness—faith. What keeping the Law could not do, the gift of faith does.
To preach Christ and Him crucified is to reveal again the revealed God who saves.