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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Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.
Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
God wants his word of promise to be the only thing we bank on, the only thing we have confidence in.
The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
The testimony of every son and daughter of God is, God has brought us through.
A father's struggle to pray for his child's healing is one of the most difficult experiences he can face.
If it’s all a fiction spun by disappointed disciples, if it’s a mere symbol for the idea of an inner awakening, if it’s not a fact that Christ has been raised, then our grief and loss have no end, and we have no hope.
This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
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.
Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
Jesus not only healed her daughter, but he also gave himself to her. Wherever she went from then on, he was with her.
The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.