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 love of God in Christ Jesus never changes. That love is for you.
Jesus has gone ahead of you on the road, and promises to be with you still.
The church is called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. Where is that message found? In every blade of grass, on every page of Scripture.
We are not pursuing dragons; we are the dragons. We are, all of us, Eustace Scrubb.
A truly Lenten mindset sees the season as preparatory for the resurrection life of Easter as opposed to the mortification of Good Friday.
Your champion steps forward.
He shows up when we are at our worst to usher us back to his side, lead us to repentance, rescue us, and reclaim us as his own.
The number forty calls to remembrance narratives of God’s great acts of redemption, but also our conformity to and participation in those narratives.
There is no AA for legalists. At least not officially. But there ought to be, and it should be called your local church.
We are the fruit that grows from the branch, which extends from the trunk of the tree, which is rooted in the soil that it grows out of, which is all Christ.
What if the dissonance in this calendrical coincidence can be harmonized into a deeper melody?
The driving impulse of Lent isn’t so much “giving up” things as it is “putting on” something.