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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Jesus does not seek out Peter to condemn, but to restore his precious lost sheep, His dearly loved prodigal son.
To a world enslaved to time (because it has no future), the Church's disregard for clocks and calendars is ridiculous.
Bearing fruit is wonderful, but you do not stay a Christian through fruit-bearing. You bear fruit and are growing because you are united to Christ.
This advent we will take a closer look at the four names given to Christ by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah Chapter 9. For Christ is not only Immanuel, or God with us, but he is also Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. His rule is not what the Israelites of Isaiah's day, the Jews throughout Jesus' life, nor even we today, expect. He comes to us as a servant and as a child and yet more wonderful, mighty, everlasting, and princely than we could imagine.
Even when you’re praying and you feel like you’re not getting what you want, God loves you. God hears you.
We stand before God with a unique set of problems, diseases, and sins. The comforting truth of the Incarnation is that Jesus took my flesh. All of it.
Jesus overcame sin, death, and Satan on the cross. His bloody suffering and death marked this sinful world's defeat.
If you get out your red-letter bible and just read the red letters, as I did today, you're in for a shock. When you read just his words, Jesus seems harsh and pretty ticked off most of the time!
Heaven is Miller Time. Heaven is the party in the streaming sunlight of the world’s final afternoon.
What does the return of the Lord Jesus in judgment mean for me now in the face of all the real-life verdicts that I have to face?
The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the Man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order. A man got us into this mess; the Man would get it out again.
The “New David” will manifest the power of the LORD and will not set Himself in opposition as did the false shepherds.