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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It’s no wonder we’re so attached to images; we are one. We are human hyphens between the celestial and the terrestrial.
The following is an excerpt adapted from, “Human Rights and Human Dignity,” written by John Warwick Montgomery (1517 Publishing, 2016).
These three: to judge, to avenge, and to glory, have been taken from us, and no person should share in them.
Original sin produces violent fruit.
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It can get ahold of a person and turn him all the way in on himself. What seemed a brief reflection lingers for hours, days, weeks, even years.
Perhaps best known for his “wager,” Pascal is often associated with this curious argument for the existence of God and eternal blessedness.
All I need to know about your spiritual condition, I can discover by watching you drive your car. What I’ve learned is that everyone is a lawbreaker, including me. It’s as simple as asking a few short questions about your driving habits...
In life, we make decisions, from the most basic to the most lasting, lacking specific knowledge about the outcome.
Because of the ascension, the manger has become the cosmos.
Forgiveness. Reconciliation. They are beautiful notions until we have some reconciling and forgiving to do. It is easy to say we believe in forgiveness.
The truth is that no amount of self-awareness will ever be enough; in fact, the more we seek after ourselves, the more inwardly bent we become.
We would rather be God ourselves. But, being God is always beyond our grasp.