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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No matter who or what chooses us as their enemy, we've received God's promise that there's nothing to fear. He will be our Light and Salvation. He will be our strength.
The throne of grace is always available to us. For the Christian, it isn’t and never will be a throne of judgment. All of the judgment for all of our sin was laid upon our perfect Savior.
Heaven may seem like a long way off right now, but it is as close to you as a gentle word spoken, a splash of water, a bit of bread, and a sip of wine.
The gospel promise is that God in Christ knows exactly what your temptations are and still bids you find protection from them in him.
The resistance to rest has nothing to do with hatred of naps and has everything to do with wanting control, and wanting a safety net outside of God.
When Luther's barber, Peter Beskendorf, asked him how to pray, Luther wrote him an open letter that has become a classic expression of the "when, how, and what" of prayer. It is as instructive today as when it was first penned it in 1535.
In a variety of ways, even in these troubled and unusual times, we can follow the lead of our Savior, to do everything we can for the life, welfare, and health of our neighbor.
The people should find their lives in your sermon, and no one’s life is unaffected by the coronavirus right now. It is the very fact that I can make such a blanket statement, free of all caveats, which makes it so necessary for us to preach on it.
Shaking off our sleep, bright and clear, we will open our eyes and huge smiles will come over our faces as we see the familiar faces of so many friends.
Only God's Word of Gospel can permanently help and heal the addicted.
Is there, or should there be, a Christian response to COVID-19? I think the answer is yes, but not in the sense that Christians have a silver bullet or cure. Christianity and Christians do, however, have something to offer the world in an era of uncertainty. They have the sure promises of Christ.
The primary point of Joseph’s life (and every story in Scripture) is to point us to Christ. To tell us something about what God is like and how He interacts with His Creation.