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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When we explain away God’s Word, we jettison the reality of our ominous diagnosis in the “Thou shall/shall nots” of the law, and with it the sweet cure in the, “This is My body/blood” of the Gospel.
In the classic musical, The Sound of Music, the storyline follows the main character, Maria, as she is sent from her life in an Abbey to become a governess over seven children.
Years ago a pastor friend of mine who felt betrayed by someone he trusted told me that he was under no biblical obligation to forgive his betrayer unless and until he asked for forgiveness.
When Dorothy, Toto and her 3 new friends finally arrived in Oz, they were met with a staggering disappointment. The Great and Powerful is Oz was not so great and powerful.
Dear church, do not get sidetracked. This is about far more than terrorism, racism, gun ownership, and the like. This is about the evil of the human heart.
It is worthwhile because Jesus Christ gave baptism to His disciples as a means for making disciples after He had suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified died and buried and rose again on the third day.
The authority God gives to men—to you and I as baptized believers in Christ—is to forgive sins, to free them from guilt, to free them from the power of sin.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
Have you ever played hide and seek with a 2-year-old? News flash: They’re terrible at it.
Stephen Fry, the English actor, author and game show host once disparaged the “grammar Nazis” who felt it necessary to enforce all the rules of language but who had forgotten, or just didn’t care, about the joy of language.
Either one of those verses alone is scary; but both of them together are terrifying!
“We humans are an evil, untrustworthy bunch.” I said to a friend recently, by way of explanation/cold comfort, after he had been cut to the core by fellow Christians who were uncomfortable with his vulnerability.