The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
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.

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The more I seek God on my own terms, the deeper I am gazing at my own navel.
Thank God for heroes: they inspire us to be better, to help others, to live and work for the good of our race. And thank God for villains, too: they incarnate our shadow side, our nocturnal soul, the dragon within us that must incessantly have its throat slit on the altar of repentance.
What postmoderns see in modernism is a misuse of power through the control of dominant narratives.
For all its stewing, regret ironically does not truly focus on the past. Often it is more concerned with the present and the future and how they would be if only we had done something differently.
Love is the sum of the law. Love God with all your heart, spirit, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. That means that if love can't be done when it needs to be done then get rid of the law, because it's not lawful.
We try believing in more abstract concepts: justice, happiness, and self-improvement, only to find that we can never truly grasp which standards should be accepted and which should be rejected.
If I were the devil, I wouldn’t just entice believers to do bad things. We’re experts at that anyway.
As every nail that Jesus hammered was a delight to his Father, so every email you send, every purchase you ring up, every table you wipe down, is a delight to the Father.
The following is adapted from Called to Defend written by Valerie Locklair (1517 Publishing, 2017).
I am not going to give an apology for evolution as a scientific theory. Rather, I am wondering if the normal way of discussing evolutionary science within conservative Christianity has blinded us to certain fruitful uses of the theory.
I saw a beautiful picture of grace yesterday. A real bestowing of favor on someone less deserving.
Amazing things. That’s what happens when the Triune God shows up in Jesus Christ.