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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If the Risen Christ is ushering in a new kingdom and a new creation, then maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to see some earth-shaking and mind-blowing things taking place.
There is no life when one is separated from the Promised Land because that will be the place where God will send His Messiah.
We confess the ascension of Christ every Sunday in the words of the both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creed.
We all know what I think (maybe) Rachel knows: Celebrating ourselves isn’t enough. It won’t ever be enough.
Luther saw that God demands not that we become perfectly righteous like God but that we simply receive the gift of righteousness; a gift that actually makes us worthy.
Absolution is the word God speaks to cause his sin-dead creation to live.
Just as the grave could not hold the Lord of Life, neither could the calendar contain Easter to just one Sunday.
For those of us who recognize the disciples’ despair in ourselves, Jesus comes with the same word: “Relax, it’s me. Peace be with you.”
God has a strange delivery system, the foolish preaching of the cross and foolish preachers for Christ’s sake delivering it.
Jesus rejects what we believe is most necessary and instead points us to his pain, suffering, death, and self-sacrifice.
Preaching is the vehicle of salvation because God engages in self-giving through the heralding of His Word.
God loves you no matter what. Loves you no matter how many times you have screwed up. Loves you to death, he does.