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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When we stop looking to Christ in faith, we are walking in sin. Anything (including our supposed law-keeping) that does not proceed from faith is sin.
The place where it is most difficult for us to accept God’s will is when suffering, calamities, and finally, death itself.
The Bible is a book for the desperate. That is its target audience. Recognizing our desperation readies us to hear the consolation that only God’s Word can offer.
Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance pours kindness and gentleness into the way we think and the way we experience life.
We cannot scan any random passage of Scripture and automatically assume the words are unconditionally addressed to us. Often, very often, they are not.
The kingdom of God has a proper name, and his name is Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man.
Ash Wednesday, is meant to remind us we have a death problem. All living things made from the soil shall return to it.
Jesus is coming again to renew all things. It may seem somewhat hidden right now, but make no mistake, hope abides.
The paradoxical Puritan doctrines of an inability to convert oneself and the command to work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling placed would-be converts like Mather in quite a bind.
Our prayer confesses that God’s abode is beyond us, yet ever so near for the prayer presupposes that we are being heard, even in our sighs and whispers.
Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance breaks through sorrow and worry; such trust pours joy into the way we think and the way we experience life.
Bonhoeffer was in the unenviable position of trying to break a spell. The spell was the Nazi crisis, where the totalitarian state threatened the church, and yet to many, seemed to be saving the culture and nation from mortal dangers.