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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Nuance and subtlety have been replaced with scorched-earth contempt. It is us versus them. Compromise is not an option. Jesus, however, would have none of it.
In our text for today, here is the great prophet, Elijah, the same guy who God used in miraculous ways, hiding in a cave, scared to death.
The question is, how are you going to live out your life as someone who has taken up the Robe of Freedom?
God has a plan for this world that he put into place from eternity, a plan that is carried out in Jesus Christ and promises unimaginably great blessings for believers.
The LORD God is seeking after those who have not sought Him! He calls out to those who have not been called by His name.
Jesus comes to people and changes everything. “Before” is long gone. “After” is a whole new world.
Paul wants us to know the radical identity shift that takes place when you put on Christ. You are free.
The Trinity is a handy shorthand for all that God has done to justify sinners.
Our God is the one who brings back the exile, who restores the outcast, he is the one who devises means to do so.
Our only hope in life and death is that God loves sinners, who fail and forget constantly, with a love that is just as constant.
These are not exclusive words for Israel, but for all the people of the Lord God’s creation.
As astounding as co-eternity and co-equality with the Father in majesty and glory is, this is not the most significant answer Jesus gave in this Gospel reading, not for us at least.