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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Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.
Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”
You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
St. Patrick was great but only because he was a slave to Christ.
Patrick's breakthrough came when he began to leverage his knowledge of the native language and customs to build a bridge between Irish lore and the Christian mythos.
We can interpret "be the Church" as either law or gospel.
He declared you what you might not always feel you are, but what you were from the moment he knew you, before you were you, when he foreknew you.
Christ's resurrection does not merely negate the bitterness of sin; it changes it into a source of divine sweetness, embodying the promise of a new life for us and a restored existence overshadowed by heavenly hope.
My goal here isn’t to selfishly reflect on all the reasons I will miss Rod because I know that if you are reading this, you may miss this man, too.
God demonstrates his great love for us in the actions of Jesus, who came down into the flesh and soaked up all our sin.
When the Savior gets on our trail, nothing, not even the grave and hell, can stop him.
A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.