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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If April 1 is April Fools’ Day, then March 25 is Divine Fool’s Day. Falling nine months before Christmas, it’s the day when God set in motion what appeared to be a foolish plan.
A star appears in the East. A spotlight over its Creator. A single constellation bows over that Light of Light from whom darkness flees.
There are so many paradoxes that we can appreciate as we seek to grasp more of the meaning of the miracle of Christmas.
Prepare yourself. You're about to be encouraged beyond all encouragement. Are you ready? Here we go…
It had just been a few weeks in my friend’s life since he had been converted to the Christian faith. He was very much still learning the ropes of what it meant to be a Christian.
We all love a good story when the underdog comes out on top. We love Rocky winning the title round, Hoosiers taking the championship, Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star, and yes, even Rudolph guiding Santa’s sleigh in the fog.
He came to be for every man what no man has been or could be for himself. Born under the law, Jesus fulfilled the law He Himself had given. He was the perfect infant, perfect teenager, perfect adult.
People lamented that ancient paganism was dead, but the same people who profess that they would love an old pagan feast ignore Christmas, where the best of paganism has survived.
It’s one of my favorite family pictures. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a couch are my granddad, my dad, me, and my son. A four-generation snapshot: Lee Roy to Carson to Chad to Luke.
On that night in Bethlehem so long ago, not even your mother who held you in her arms understood that you had come to turn the world upside down in a through-the-looking-glass sort of way.
The mother of this prophet is visited by the Mother of God. In the coming together of these two pregnant women, we see the coming together of the old and the new.
While reading Matthew chapter 2 where the story of the Three Kings, Wise Men, or Magi is found, I was captivated by the part King Herod played in the story. Herod, who had befriended Mark Anthony and Octavius, had been given the rule of Palestine and was crowned King of the Jews.