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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No one twisted Jesus’s arm to make him enter Mary’s womb. No one tricked him into being born into a world strung out on the meth of sin. He came in with his eyes wide open.
In Christ, the Word become flesh, this is a concrete, real fact. It is the bedrock foundation of the Gospel.
God’s justification of us does not happen secretly in our spirits. God justifies you and me in His absolving Word
Rather than presenting Christ’s words as a rule or a threat, Luther reveals it to be the promise of God.
Recovery helps us see beauty in the ordinary; the miracle and wonder of creation in the oak leaf or the evergreen needle.
If this opening verse offers to us both door and doorkeeper, then the doorkeeper stands with the door held securely shut.
When the Holy Spirit is at work in the office of the holy ministry, the man is ridden by the Spirit and so his only concern is for preaching the Gospel, baptizing, absolving, and feeding sinners in the Name of Christ Jesus.
She heard it before, but looking around she struggles to see how it matters.
What do the events of good stories, like The Lord of the Rings teach us about the rise and fall of civilizations in our own world?
If God is God, He doesn’t need anyone to defend Him. Nor does He need anyone to march for Him.
When our sense of alienation from God is underscored and exaggerated by daily life we behave like tropical fish when their tank is cleaned.
Eucatastrophe combines two Greek words: ‘eu’ meaning ‘good’ (as in eulogy or euphoria), and ‘katastrophe’ for destruction.