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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The incarnation was universal, irrespective of nationality, race, or even Christmas tradition.
Luther’s theology lets the believer in Christ dwell under the cerulean sky of God’s unchanging grace.
“Whatever you do, don’t share the Gospel with me?” Those were my exact words to my slightly mystified seminary professor. As he set his coffee down, I could tell that he was holding back in an effort to allow me to process what I was thinking.
As we enter into this year’s Advent season, this blog is a part of our series on the hope we find in, through and given by Christ, Each week’s installment will look at hope from a different perspective with special emphasis on corresponding passages of Scripture.
God’s gifts are received, and the faithful heart offers gratias, and thanks are given in return.
Jesus is the Word of God. God’s Word—on two legs (John 1:14). I’d read it in the first chapter of John’s Gospel many, many times.
The thing seems incredible, and I would not have believed it myself, nor have understood Paul’s words here, had I not witnessed it with my own eyes and experienced it.
A part of our series on Luther's, Heidelberg Disputation.
Right now (and I would add, for quite some time) there has been a debate within Christianity about the whole issue of culture.
Prechers translate as a calling. Called by God, they are given a message, and for most of their hearers it is to one degree or another a message in a language from afar, with strange concepts, sometimes with a more familiar ring, sometimes with a strange sound.
But when we trust Jesus, then we close our eyes to it all and say, “Heavenly Father, I’m your child.
God preaches a concrete word to us in the present tense. We hear the Good News that Jesus is God’s mercy for us.