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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Paul is writing as a man who has already lived a life of law-keeping while denying the resurrection.
This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
I hate to break it to you, but "are" is not an action verb. "Are" is a being verb.
As disciples of Jesus, our righteousness cannot be performed before others, because our righteousness was already performed by Jesus.
If you interpret James, as most do, as an encouragement toward proving your faith by your works and then say it is your "favorite" then you are proclaiming that your favorite thing about the Christian faith is the practical outworking, the proving your faith by your works.
To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
You are the friend in low places. It’s only from this place that you are free to look outside yourself for the remedy to the issues that plague you and humanity.
There is no true life and meaningful community apart from forgiveness.
The reason that God’s commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus has fulfilled them.