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.

All Articles

Are we still haunted by God? Do our sins bother us to the point that we worry about God’s righteous wrath? Does the concept of justification, how one can be right in the eyes of God, even cross our minds?
Grace is God’s caring disposition toward His human creatures. And it is shown fully and purely in the work of Jesus for us.
When we — sinful, reprehensible we — become the enforcers of justice, we never bring about true justice. We either go too far or not far enough.
The full effect of the Law had been visited upon God's people, but now the LORD will remember His people and return them to the land of promise and to Holy Jerusalem.
Hebrews proclaims you absolutely need a priest and you have one. This priest is Jesus!
Today, Jesus' road to Jerusalem turns into your congregation. He calls you and your hearers to follow Him all the way home.
Jesus came from the heights of heaven above to the depths of earth below to rescue and redeem his long-lost love.
The church’s reformation is not about fragmentation, but a way forward to unity around that which is central to the church, around Christ and him crucified.
A little or a lot, great is the joy of the child of God for the meaning of life is not defined by stuff, but rather by the cross.
Honor would be shown to the least. Power would be shown by its opposite. The way of glory was marked with humility.
No work need be done to enter this Sabbath rest, for Christ has done all that is necessary.
The Son of God is still God the Son in the Incarnation.