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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God has created perfectly. God is in the house and all is right with the world!
This is the feast, the banquet to end all banquets. The LORD God is the maker and provider of this great feast which takes place for the resurrected faithful in the courts of Heaven.
Jesus is not just another king in the line of David—this is the new King David! Hosanna in the highest!
If Jesus is better than Moses, then everything changes. If Jesus is better than Moses, then the ultimate becomes the penultimate.
Jesus takes the sins of man upon Himself and carries them to the cross to make our hearts holy and acceptable in the eyes of God.
When we look upon the cross, we see our sin. We also see the One who washes it away and gives life.
While these are familiar words to us, frequently they are dealt with in ways that fail to take into account the context and the situation.
The Church has traditionally understood Baptism as a naming Sacrament. It reminds us of our new baptismal identity.
We cannot scan any random passage of Scripture and automatically assume the words are unconditionally addressed to us. Often, very often, they are not.
Do you want to learn Hebrew or expand your knowledge of the language? What are some online resources for studying the Bible in the original languages?
The amount of Messianic/Christological connections in this account is stunning. This is an excellent Old Testament text with which to begin Lent!
The paradoxical Puritan doctrines of an inability to convert oneself and the command to work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling placed would-be converts like Mather in quite a bind.