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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Baptism is always valid because no unrighteousness or faithlessness on our part could ify God’s faithfulness.
Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the agent of creation, the Savior of all people, promises to abide IN His people.
The reason the mind is endlessly troubled about God predestining everything is the vague generalization. Generalizations are cold as ice, without the warm Christ.
Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality.
We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
In His grace, Jesus promises that all who come to Him in faith will live abundantly and eternally.
When the One who created the world comes to you, there is reason for courage and never reason to fear.
But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He saw his arrest not as the kingdom’s program being thwarted but as it being “fulfilled.”
The acquisition of salvation, the giving of salvation, and the keeping of salvation are entirely dependent upon the Savior himself.
Because Jesus turns desolate, dying places into holy landscapes of life.
What Luther is doing in his Catechism is teaching how the gospel is an action of the whole Trinity, not just one of the persons.
I would understand if you were a bit offended. This looks more like Game of Thrones than the Kingdom of God.