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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And your life, weary and broken as it is, is hidden by God in Christ—tucked away in God’s enduring and eternally given Word, in Jesus.
Out of His mind indeed, as He took our place between murderers and received the insults and torture of humanity.
When it comes to this world, our beds are most often a mess even when we do our best to make them in the morning.
We are called to proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of the Answer incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in love respond to the questions that inevitably arise against it.
Pictures of God’s grace for us in and through His Son, Jesus, can be found in the most unlikely places. Recently, I witnessed one such picture of God’s grace during WrestleMania 34.
When we focus on God's self-giving Word, when we turn our attention to Golgotha, we are shown a wholly different way of viewing the Commandments.
Because of Jesus, we don’t have to pretty up anything ugly thing in life.
Come to the feast where evil and good, wise and foolish, shameful and shaming are welcomed as citizens of the kingdom.
Well, it is springtime! Just as you can always expect flowers to begin blooming, the days getting a little longer and everyone’s mood getting a little brighter, there’s something else you can always expect this time of the year.
So, on this Good Friday, our sinful self and all our sins rest with Jesus here in His tomb. Our transgressions are fully atoned.
At Golgotha, Jesus saves us from sin by becoming sin for us. Jesus takes all our messes, all our shame, all our guilt, all our fears and insecurities and He allows them to kill Him instead of us.
Jesus’ death was a direct fulfillment of the will of His Father as promised in the Scriptures.