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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Not long ago I was having a conversation with a friend. She was facing a big decision about her career with a deadline looming for a decision.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Richter scale, our friends over at Wikipedia define it as a 1930s invention that "is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which defines magnitude as the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitude of the seismic waves to an arbitrary, minor amplitude."
I love books. I love authors. I love the way putting words down on paper incarnates ideas that might otherwise remain ghosts of the mind, flitting here and there in our gray matter.
Before long I was deeply involved in the trilogy (the reader is invariably "drawn into" the story in a unique way, and for a good reason as we shall see).
We are continuing our summer series on a theology of worship through the lens of language. Before moving forward, let me highlight a few points by way of review.
The time constrained authoring of the Augustana caused great angst, for the part of Melanchthon that was never satisfied with his own literary output.
Like any language, the liturgy has syntax—a structure that provides order and intelligibly communicates meaning through all that is said.
As the story unfolds we see Luther’s Heidelberg theses on display, even before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
On this night of nights, Christ arises victorious and sends the devil’s hordes running with no darkness to find cover; death’s dark shadow is gone
The only thing Hobbits love more than a good meal, is good company with whom they can share it.
Warning, Remember, O man, that thou art dust… And lust, he mocks in mute self-condemnation.
As it turned out, the novels in which I had sought escape, became part of the means whereby the Lord rescued me from my own death.