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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The world’s history and Jewish history was like a story in search of an ending; and when Jesus rose from the dead the ending was now revealed.
By his initiative alone, he remakes our hearts to love him and others unselfishly.
What is it, though, that makes bedtime so fraught with anxiety?
Faith isn’t something that needs to be done. It’s something to be enjoyed because faith is a gift bestowed by God’s word through the hearing of the Gospel.
In Christ, we live beneath an open heaven having the definitive proof in the cross of Christ that God is outrageously for us, not against us.
"Ragged" written by Gretchen Ronnevik is now available for purchase from 1517 Publishing
We all know what I think (maybe) Rachel knows: Celebrating ourselves isn’t enough. It won’t ever be enough.
From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture echoes with the great songs of salvation that fill our ears, hearts, minds, and mouths with the good news of salvation in Jesus.
Luther saw that God demands not that we become perfectly righteous like God but that we simply receive the gift of righteousness; a gift that actually makes us worthy.
Evangelism is hard work requiring lots of patience. Churches and mission boards are often too impatient and want to see numerical growth explode overnight.
Absolution is the word God speaks to cause his sin-dead creation to live.
Those called out for their sins, who find themselves knee deep in their transgressions, always need grace.