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 hope is God's mercy. It's like a well that never dries up. His mercies were there before he created us. They are present for us today.
Even for idolatrous sellouts like you and me, God’s position has not changed. Even though we may have forgotten him, he never forgets us.
If we think God’s power, love and beauty are reserved merely for the glories of Transfiguration, then we have not understood the Father; we have not understood divine revelation.
The LORD cleanses, prepares, and fills the mouths of His prophets, so they might be able to proclaim the holy Word of the LORD.
The same Christ we proclaim to the people in our pews is the same Christ who is for those not in our pews.
Paul has no interest in a love which does not find real traction in our daily lives.
Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.
Here, robed in Word and Sacrament, is your King, infant though He be, come out of eternity into time to bring you out of time and into eternity.
The imprecatory psalms are like release valves for hurting souls. Their stanzas are God-given spaces in which we can bear our soul’s torment.
Jesus' cross is for dull shepherds and bright magi. It is for the whole world. It is for you.
The gift is God’s and not ours, and the fact that any of us have any role to play at all in the Body of Christ is an amazing grace.
Thus, the people weep and mourn, but they are told to cease with their mourning and rejoice and celebrate as a festival without worry or care, for the day is holy to the LORD who is their refuge and strength.