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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Contrary to common American Christian thinking, you would emphasize the individual is not the center of the biblical narrative. Christianity is not primarily about me and my relationship with Jesus.
Jesus invites us to practice a faith that is bold. He invites us to trust in Him, without calculations.
Throughout the Gospels there is no quality more closely identified by Jesus with the life of His people than humility which echoes His own.
God desires that all men might be saved. The problem, the stumbling block, does not lie with God. The problem is one of man’s heart and spirit.
Viewing the Bible as literature is an essential and natural way of engaging the text. But there are also ways in which this practice can get lost.
Imagine a world where love is given to the least. That is what Jesus is inviting His disciples to do in His parable this morning.
It is the Word of the Lord and His Word accomplishes what it says. Our favorable or unfavorable circumstances neither help nor hinder the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
God seeks us so we might find Him, but He does so in ways that do not always make sense to us.
The scope of catechesis from the Reformation was broad and included not only instruction at church but in the home and in schools.
In this parable, notice how Jesus invites us to consider that forgiveness is something more than a moment. It is a way of grace that extends throughout an entire kingdom.
Paul attempts to break down the walls which the early Christians effortlessly erected between those of different ethnic origins — specifically Jews and Gentiles — to drive them to the will and mind of Christ: Worship together as one body.
God is in control of history and He can even use evil and evil ones to accomplish His purposes.