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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Apologetics isn’t optional for the Christian, just as Christ isn’t optional to apologetics.
That is why the church has to offer Super Bread and Super Wine, so that God can see that we are Super Christians.
Heaven is as near as the Word proclaimed from the mouth of the preacher into the ear and heart of the sinner. It is as near as the bread and wine in your mouth. For, you see, Word and sacrament are where Jesus is.
“We all partake of the one cup, the cup of blessing which we bless. This is not seen as a bunch of different cups, but as one cup, the same cup that Jesus blessed at the Last Supper.”
Only the poor are in need of a Savior, and only the dead need faith, hope, and love delivered to them by the hand of the Almighty.
To lose a leader like this is always too soon!
We aggrandize time. It certainly possesses power over us. It irreversibly moves us in one direction and can’t be replayed to different ends.
Blessedness comes to us camouflaged as simple earthly words, water, bread and wine.
Growing up, I dreaded the first Sunday of each quarter. Every time during the evening service, we would have Lord’s Supper after the sermon.
In the face of all the misunderstandings on the part of the world and all the errors which have arisen within Christendom, let us make this point absolutely clear: the task of the church in the world consists uniquely and alone in the preaching of the Word of God and in administering the Sacrament.
This is why a Christian must keep learning to forget himself so long as he lives.
The only churches that live are churches that have died. That still die. And that rise to newness of life in Christ’s life alone.