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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In this text, Isaiah is quite explicit and reflects the suffering and disgrace this Servant will suffer as He faithfully does the will of God.
The devil is to be taken seriously, but we should also not give him more credit or more power than he has after being defanged by Christ’s resurrection.
Can we fully experience the joy of the Festival of the Resurrection if we do not seriously stare boldly into the sad state of our own faithlessness to Him who promises to be faithful even when we are not?
John Pless offers thoughts on preaching for your midweek Lent sermons.
Looking back on the year, the narrative we’re fed is that we should be able to show how much we’ve grown, how much we’ve done, all the successes we’ve had, how improved we are.
JFK was not the only national figure who died on November 11, 1963. Though his death certainly took up most of the headlines, the acclaimed writers C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley also died that day as well.
Here is truly illustrated the truth that no one comes to Christ except the Father draw him; and with what power, what delicious sweetness, the Father allures!
Every day, in everything we do and experience, we are busy hearing, seeing, and telling stories.
Ultimately it’s at the cross of Calvary, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the great Lion of Judah, that the stone table is broken, and everything sad does indeed finally come untrue.
We can’t all afford to travel the world, but the more we read from outside our own context, the bigger we see the world.
Thomas was without a doubt a skeptic. And he was a skeptic without a doubt.
With this declaration of peace, Jesus was telling His disciples, ‘Because I died for you, you are now justified.’