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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Inside our heads is a courtroom where our whole lives are put on trial. And we are declared guilty of things. Big things, little things. God things, human things. True things, false things. We never can measure up.
The side of God he has made known to us is Jesus. He is the one and only revelation of the Father, the one and only revelation we need.
He holds you tight and loves you even as you weep and fight in his arms. His Son suffers alongside you as your brother in the flesh.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
As the story unfolds we see Luther’s Heidelberg theses on display, even before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
You cannot fudge Glory in this life. You get there only on the Better Day that is coming and not one day before.
I started writing this article about a friend, her struggles through cancer, and the pain of an unfortunate and severe fall that landed her in a hospital, requiring months of rehabilitation.
I looked up at the cross and saw what God had become to bring me home. He had become what I was.
Believe in God, belong to a church, and behave yourself isn’t the Gospel.
They may also be fellow sufferers who’ve hit their own bottom with you. Whoever they are, they wear the mask of Jesus the crucified. In them and through them the Lord is at work to love you.
Without getting into specifics, I have suffered a loss that seemed at times unbearable. I cried. I pleaded. I questioned. I prayed. I drank. Rinse. Repeat.
It may seem easy to believe in the God who changes water into wine, but it is not. For when man is at his happiest, he thinks the least of the true source of his joy.