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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They stood on their feet, the Father's host, Alive in the Son and Holy Ghost.
There’s some wild and untamed prayers in the psalms. But they’re fenced in by order, symmetry, predictability. They organize chaos. And they bring order and hope and stability to our chaotic lives.
Whether one believes Jesus to be God or not, His words and actions proclaim that He did not come to be served but to serve.
Don’t let anyone tell you the academy denies the concept of truth...good gracious, I hope by the end of the semester they are still alive.
Some days, people need a touch. Not just any touch, but something that says, "I care about you, and I love you."
The God who's lifted up above Calvary, abandoned and forsaken, should draw a more discerning crowd of followers.
But that’s the way he rolls, isn't it? By misquoting, manipulating, and ripping God’s word out of context, the devil wields it as a weapon to drive us to doubt and pride.
The more I heard the song, the more I heard the heart of the Gospel in the song.
There is something odd about the definition of God as a being that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
But one key theme that kept surfacing again and again was love: Jesus loved people, the Church showed me genuine love, and above all, God’s love in Christianity is unconditional.
Last year, a friend I follow tweeted, “Calling yourself a sinner is spitting on all the work that Jesus did to make you a saint.”
Far from being un-Christian like, the discipline and training that go into learning and practicing various martial arts can have direct application to the spiritual discipline needed for the Christian life of faith characterized by Israel.