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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A part of our series on Luther's, Heidelberg Disputation.
Right now (and I would add, for quite some time) there has been a debate within Christianity about the whole issue of culture.
This is the seventh installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 13, 14 and 15 by Caleb Keith.
The following is adapted from Called to Defend written by Valerie Locklair (1517 Publishing, 2017).
Prechers translate as a calling. Called by God, they are given a message, and for most of their hearers it is to one degree or another a message in a language from afar, with strange concepts, sometimes with a more familiar ring, sometimes with a strange sound.
The following is an excerpt from A Path Strewn with Sinners: A Devotional Study of Mark’s Gospel and His Race to the Cross written by Wade Johnston (1517 Publishing, 2017).
God preaches a concrete word to us in the present tense. We hear the Good News that Jesus is God’s mercy for us.
The following is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).
Hus held that Christ alone grants salvation and that popes do not.
The miracle of Pentecost is not obvious; it is the miracle of faith created through the preaching of the word of the cross.
In Martin Luther's Small Catechism he borrows a line from St. Augustine about what defines a "god."
I’ve always been more at home in the Old Testament than in the New Testament.