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 in fact executed his plans for his people, plans of peace (probably a better translation than welfare), a future, and a hope in Jesus Christ.
The goal of language in the mouth of a Christian isn’t to hold power for ourselves but to give it.
Preaching is the first line of defense and catechetical offensive against these corrosive falsehoods.
God’s promise never to separate us from the love of Jesus means that our security, and our confidence, and our forgiveness—even for our part in past divisions—depends entirely on His faithfulness and not ours.
To repent in his name is done thus: in those who believe in Christ God through the same faith works a change for the better, not for a moment, nor for an hour, but for their whole life.
Except for the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon’s Loci communes of 1521 were the most important of his writings.
God uses the unlikely, the unexpected, and sometimes even the unsavory to deliver us and to crush the heads of his enemies
The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
You cannot “be what you want to be” and follow Jesus. Jesus has a higher calling for you, a calling which is more personal.
Rachel was the beloved wife, to be sure, but she was not the maternal link between Eve and Mary. That blessed position belonged to Leah.
Just like in the previous interview, I had to rewind to make sure I was hearing all this right. Yeah, that's actually what he said.
The “Lamenter” does not ask to carry out the vengeance/action himself, rather He trusts the LORD God to take care of business.