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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Imagine a world in which it is always winter but never Christmas. Imagine a place where Deep Magic from the dawn of time requires the blood of the innocent be shed to save the guilty.
"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." This should therefore be our starting place for understanding the basis of the doctrine.
I pray Thy name be hallowed, Lord, But want my name to be adored.
Because I do care now, and will care even after I’m with the Lord, here are some things I hope and pray are not said at my funeral. I care about those who will be there, about what they will hear.
We have to trust that there is value in these conversations. They are not valuable only when they can be counted as a program. And what are most programs but attempts to get us to “act like” Christians at some future point of time?
To determine whether the conception of Christianity as philosophy might actually be warranted, attention must be given to the actual natures of philosophy and religion, especially as then understood.
I was asked to write one on Hebrews 4:14-16, to be read on Thursday, February 20. Among the finds that Luke and I discovered this weekend was that meditation.
What does Steve Jobs have to do with Theology? Very little. But that won’t stop me from trying to make a connection.
But there’s more to this movie than excellent Lego graphics and artistic; in other words, imaginative storytelling.
What do imagination, Lego bricks, and Sub-Creation have to do with apologetics?
I hoped like mad they’d spit in my face and laugh me all the way out of town. I wouldn’t have even cared if a mob of them had beat me to death in a back alley. But heavens no, I couldn’t be that lucky.
One of the strongest elements in the evangelicalism of my youth has a place in Lutheranism that might be surprising to many. This is what our confessions call “The Mutual Conversation and Consolation of the Brethren."