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 Seed of the woman is he who will crush the head of the evil one and restore man to a right and proper relationship with God.
Because God makes the rules He is free to break them when He chooses, however, God only breaks His own rules on the side of grace!
Obviously, the choice is very black and white: good or evil; life or death; blessings or curses...Unfortunately, the actions of the people will speak louder than their words.
The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw," written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
I venture to assert I have never read, in the entire Scriptures, words more beautifully expressive of the grace of God than these two children words.
Whoever you are, your Father loves you differently than he loves other people. You are more than a grain of sand in the vast desert called humanity.
There are good, God-pleasing reasons to attend a Divine Service, but worship attendance can also be an action by which we try to earn or deserve the favor and love of God. This is an ongoing struggle in every worshiping community.
A close examination of the entire life and ministry of Jesus reflects the Exodus event, and Jesus is the New Moses/the prophet like Moses.
Sometimes believers vigorously debate God, sometimes they nod a silent Amen. Together, their narratives paint a picture of a life of faith characterized by complexity and tension.
We preach, teach and confess the virgin birth, and rightly so, but the actual sign is not the Virgin giving birth, it is the Child who is born.
Throughout the Old Testament, the seas and fish were symbols of the Gentiles. When Jesus ate fish, and called fishermen, he showed us that the mission to the Gentiles was about to begin in earnest.
For the Israelites, the language of restoration cannot be separated from the language of resurrection.