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.

All Articles

The devil isn’t a popular subject nowadays. The argument is made that we’ve progressed as a culture.
It is only when individuals are bound together in community that they become fully human.
I am often haunted by my past. I am daily haunted by what I should be doing.
Jesus’ forgiveness will not collapse. Jesus’ forgiveness will take us places our legs can’t take us.
Here is a lament I’ve written especially for victims of hurricanes. May it be for you, for your family, or for your church, a way to put into prayer the anguish of your souls.
The Christian sees himself or herself as one just as guilty as the rest of the world. But we see ourselves not just as what’s wrong with the world, but in the One by whom the world has been redeemed.
Would you go to the church on the corner knowing that the pastor is an ex-con?
Jesus cuts right to the chase when it comes to the evil one. He calls the devil “a liar and the father of lies,”
Right now (and I would add, for quite some time) there has been a debate within Christianity about the whole issue of culture.
There was a TV show back in the ‘90s called “Dinosaurs” that I used to sneak into the living room at night to watch.
I told him that God does not have two types of sheep. God does not have a fold of black, and another white. God only has a fold made up entirely of black sheep because He knows the truth about us.
As a bass player, when I listen to music, I listen for what the bassist is doing. But, when I listen to music in my 2004 Honda Civic I have a problem: only one of the four speakers works.