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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Vilification of the other is married to the justification of the self.
The spirit indeed is willing and desires bodily death as a gentle sleep. It does not consider it to be death; it knows no such thing as death.
In Jesus, the most totalizing summary of the law becomes the gospel of the one made perfect through obedience.
In the place of God, Marx sets the material, autonomous, self-creating man.
Neomonasticism—that is, the idea that church work is more important than regular work—implies that God cares more about the spiritual than the physical.
Moses is no Jesus but he, like us, is saved by Him. The law cannot enter the promised land, and yet the true and greater promised land is occupied by nothing but lawbreakers.
Through Martin Luther, God would unleash a far greater storm than the one which overwhelmed Luther on July 2, 1505.
Following Jesus, we gimp our way down the dark and slippery paths of life. As we do, we discover, ironically, that the longer we follow him, the weaker we become, and the more we lean on our Lord.
Christian mercy should not seek its own. It must be round, and open its eyes and look at all alike, friend and foe, as our heavenly Father does.
There’s no possibility of understanding the grace of Romans 6 and the glory of Romans 8 unless you identify with the excruciating struggle of Romans 7.
FLAME uses Scripture and church history to argue that baptism is a gospel gift, not our work.
This week, we are grateful to publish a series of sermons from our beloved late Chaplain, Ron Hodel. This is the second installment of that series.