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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What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
I hate to break it to you, but "are" is not an action verb. "Are" is a being verb.
This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
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.
Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
The waiting of Advent isn’t just for Christmas; it’s for God’s reversal of all sin and evil and his renewal of all things.
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.
Righteousness before God is possessed only by grace and that through the currency of faith.
Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.