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 a small thing in the big picture to give his head for the Head of the Church who would give his life for John and all sinners.
In the Bible, we meet the God who also does not prance around naked as a jaybird.
Nature ends in stinging judgment from its Creator.
As both law and gospel are proclaimed, judgment and deliverance are miraculously pronounced over the hearer.
Jesus took the poison of sin and drank the cup of wrath on our behalf to gain favor and righteousness for us.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
A miracle happened right before our very eyes.
Moltmann is gone now, but his theology will continue to provoke and provide.
In our catastrophes - whatever they may be, however large or small they are - we cry out for rescue, deliverance, and salvation.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.
What we do much less of, even in Christian circles, is recognize just how pervasive sin is, such that it has thoroughly corrupted us.
Now that the Lord of Sabaoth has involved himself, something ends, something is born.