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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God’s justification of us does not happen secretly in our spirits. God justifies you and me in His absolving Word
We are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Losers set free to trust in God’s promises.
When we are unsure of who God is, it’s to Christ that He tells us to look.
Luther contends that even our best spiritual, theological, and moral efforts are insufficient to save us.
Rather than presenting Christ’s words as a rule or a threat, Luther reveals it to be the promise of God.
Conflict demands resolution, tension demands a balancing act in the face of uncertainties.
How strange and yet how comforting: God prays to God for us, the Spirit to the Father. He sees through the fog of our emotions to what we truly need.
If this opening verse offers to us both door and doorkeeper, then the doorkeeper stands with the door held securely shut.
Standing before Jesus is one of the cultural groups that the Lord sought fit to eradicate for their wickedness to preserve the line that would eventually birth Jesus.
When the Holy Spirit is at work in the office of the holy ministry, the man is ridden by the Spirit and so his only concern is for preaching the Gospel, baptizing, absolving, and feeding sinners in the Name of Christ Jesus.
He’s the Grandpa who goes on and on about how delicious these mud pies are that we present to him. He laughs, honestly and sincerely, at our stupid jokes.
We were created by our heavenly Father to receive all things from Him as free gift.