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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The oddness of this moment, at the beginning of Advent, is God’s way of saying, “The reason I’m here...”
“God in general” is of little use to all of us suffering the ravages of sin, the fear of death, and satanic prosecution.
Look the judge in the eye and pin your sin on Jesus, the divine judge’s son. Jesus knows you can’t do it, so he trades places with you and pits himself against God’s righteous demands.
The Israelites had taken the Covenantal promise and the language of separation and interpreted them to mean the message of salvation and restoration was meant for only them. But this is counter to the reality of the Scriptures.
God is most glorified in the sending of Jesus to be the Savior of sinners.
Trust in the midst of trouble. That is what our Lord calls us to experience today.
This text arguably contains the clearest teaching concerning the bodily resurrection from the dead in the Old Testament.
Hebrews reminds us you cannot “be the church” unless you go to church.
Everywhere we look, there is suffering. But Jesus is not calling us to look. He is calling us to listen.
Jesus meets us in our life of lies, in our falsehoods, in the untruth of our being, and in the company, we create to cover up our nakedness.
This book is for people who want to get serious about the church. It’s for pastors who are sick and tired of surfing the latest wave or jumping from one program to the other.
What do Habakkuk and Israel have? Nothing but the word of God. Nothing but the promise of God. Nothing but God himself.