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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Just as we believe ourselves to be forgiven because God sees us in Christ, so to forgive others is to see them as God sees them in Christ. To forgive, in other words, is to put God’s eyes in our eyes and our eyes in God’s eyes.
Despite the death all around us, the death that is assured us, we know there is a way out.
Blood is the thing. In the Scriptures, sin must be covered or "atoned for" as it's called, by blood.
Even after Jesus made it clear in His actions and commands that God’s grace is for all sinners, the apostles forgot the promises they received from their Savior.
I grew up playing baseball – mostly “street” baseball, with a bunch of friends. It was one of my passions in life.
Psalm 51 teaches two things: mercy and sin. But aren’t we already experts in sin? Why do we need God to teach it to us?
We fail over and over again to tame the sin in our hearts, to guard the doors of our lips and to act like the children of God.
The restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s belly, in a manger, at the cross.
This blog is a part of our Advent series on the hope we find in, through and given by Christ. Each week’s installment will look at hope from a different perspective with special emphasis on corresponding passages of Scripture.
Do any of you have one of “those” kids? Every family should have at least one. They humble you.
I’m a life-long New Yorker, and I have the pleasure of working minutes from the neighborhood I grew up in as a boy.
I think we can all agree that there is not a more popular writer on Christ Hold Fast than Chad Bird.