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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He lavishly pours out His rest in the waters of Baptism, in the spoken words of absolution from the pastor’s lips, in the preaching of the cross and resurrection, in the consumption of heavenly cuisine from the table at which He is host and meal.
Looking back, I see that the biggest problem (besides heresy) was that my faith was first about what I did or didn’t do, but it was also intangible and spiritual.
Take away the water, words, bread and wine. Can you be a Christian without water, words, bread and wine?
Should we consider the tomb of Jesus completely empty, or just somewhat empty?
Before you ever know what happened, Satan has taught us to doubt the promise of the crucified and risen Christ.
You are changing as your eyes move over these sentences. You are aging. You are on your way to death. And nothing, absolutely nothing, can alter that fact.
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
“Why do you seek the living One among the dead?” the angel asked the two women. The time for Jesus to die has passed.
The Lord has a special place in his heart for those whom the world forgets. For the anonymous. For the rejected.
He has Israel right where he wants them: a body of water in front of them, their enemies behind them, and God above them, ready to save. Our Lord is always undoing us that he might redo us, killing us that he might enliven us.
But I remember that that’s how it ended. Words. Wine. Blood. A sudden halt to the conversation.
We are like the spoiled children of kings who spit in the face of paupers on the street. We have been given so much, yet we treasure so little.