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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Our value and our values, our life, our everything is from Jesus Christ given to us as a gift.
There is only one antidote to the venom of sin and death: the Savior who becomes the serpent so that every snake-bitten-sinner might live.
When offering encouragement to His disciples to follow Him, Jesus did not promise a pain-free life in this world. Instead, He highlighted the struggle and the difficulty. Why?
God is consistently rooting us in reality—both what is seen and unseen—because that is where he is.
To “trust in God in trial” means we fight our battles by kneeling and praying to “the Holy One of Israel,” who works out our deliverance by himself.
We bring nothing with us that contributes to the preaching or the hearing of God’s promise to us.
This is true discipleship. We live with Jesus, we hold on to Jesus, we suffer with Jesus, because Jesus brings a divisive peace that saves.
At the heart of The Idiot is Dostoevsky's confession of faith and the confession of all Christians.
Faith is like a horse with blinders because it only beholds God’s promise. It is obsessed with what God has already said.
We are loved by our heavenly Father. When the Creator and Giver of all good things is caring for you, suddenly, you are free to care for others.
Cyril’s fervor for pure explication of the gospel was present throughout his career.
What Jesus promises is better than justice. Jesus promises grace.