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 is in the midst of a world marked by empty and deceptive hopes that have broken hearts and lives that we are sent to deliver the promise of a future that has as its last chapter the resurrection of the body to eternal life with the Lamb who was slain but is alive forevermore.
Where Erasmus saw fear and collapse, Luther saw the never-ending comfort of Christ and his gospel.
When we hear freedom, we have to ask about its opposite, bondage.
The devil knows our name and labels us by our sin. The devil breathes out death as he names us for what we are, sinners.
Like the younger son, we can return to our Father every time our sinful hearts rebel against him. Like the older brother, we can complain and lament to our Father without fear of being destroyed.
The following is an excerpt from“Credo: I Believe,” edited by Caleb Keith and Kelsi Klembara (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Are people so different today? Is justification really irrelevant now? Is the preacher’s only point of contact with the life-giving Gospel a by-product of Microsoft’s word processor? I do not think so.
Friends are a gift from God, but all gifts flow from God to his children because of his love for us on account of Christ.
The following is an excerpt from“Where Two or Three Are Gathered” edited by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2019).
The optimism of a Christian extends beyond the deathbed and has its origin in a historical event without historical boundaries.
The kingdom of Christ is realized where nothing but comfort and the forgiveness of sins reign not only in words to proclaim it, which is also necessary; but also in deed.
The following is an excerpt from “Where Two or Three Are Gathered” edited by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2019).