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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Our certainty is of Christ, that mighty hero who overcame the Law, sin, death, and all evils.
Christian hope means always hope in God and hope in Christ simultaneously without distinction.
The only one truly blessed of God, who in himself is God’s incarnate makarios, surrounds himself with a multitude of the accursed, the non-makarios.
It is not her sacrifices that define Jane's faith, but her belief in the one who sacrificed for her.
This is an edited excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Despite what the Pharisees believed and advertised, Jesus was not intent upon deconstructing the fundamental tenets of the Old Testament law. Actually, he proceeds to do just the opposite.
Jesus comes to you. He binds your wounds, and he pours out his body and his blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
Everyone is living as a naked sufferer who’s been duped into believing that the nakedness of suffering has to be covered up.
We prefer God to forgive our sin by not paying attention to it. Then our prayer is not for grace but that God would overlook and wink at us from the sidelines.
My Song Is Love Unknown is a Lenten hymn written by Samuel Crossman and John Ireland. For this particular arrangement we've added a chorus which reads: "oh, Your grace has made a way. Oh, your love has conquered this grave. Oh, Your love made known to me, and to the world, Your love I'll be." The goal with this chorus was to continue the personal tone of the song particularly emphasizing the redeeming work of Christ in our lives.
God daily broadsides us with his abundant power and glory as we observe nature around us. And yet, as glorious as this book of nature is, it is not enough.
The one true God has revealed himself as the answer to the longings of every human heart. The search has ended. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Holy, Holy, Holy.