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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As long as our illusions of control over storms and germs persist to govern our thinking, we will never be able to take the saving work of Christ as seriously we ought.
Solomon did not write Ecclesiastes to bum you out. He wrote it to set you free.
Everyone dreads what might happen if political control is captured by the enemy. Paranoia is the characteristic feature of this kind of under-realized eschatology.
Maybe for the first time you can begin to receive creation as a gift, a sheer gift from God’s hands. And who knows what might happen in the power of this grace? All possibilities are open.
Because peace is a gift and not a product, you can’t work your way into it. However—you can receive it by grace.
"Whom shall we fear?" We fear no one. We're not afraid of anything. Instead, we wait for the Lord with good courage. He will strengthen our hearts, as the psalmist writes (Ps 27:1).
The scope of catechesis from the Reformation was broad and included not only instruction at church but in the home and in schools.
What doesn’t kill you might actually be a cheapened law that leaves wiggle room and space in the door for your old man to stick his foot in and get in on the work of Christ.
Jesus isn’t any ordinary leader. In spite of all the ways the leaders of our world may let us down, you can trust Jesus to always lead you well.
As much as Luther calls Christians to a sober belief in the devil, he also calls them to a firm and steadfast faith in Christ
One day at a time, God provides us with a heart of wisdom, and in this way, our Lord teaches us to number our days. 
Christians have the rare faculty, above all other people on earth, of knowing where to place their care, while others vex and torture themselves and at length must despair.