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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The Holy Spirit isn’t so much the one you look at, as he is the one who turns you from looking at yourself and your sin to your Savior, Jesus.
Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.
Sunday morning is about receiving, not giving.
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 story of salvation is the true story of God doing his unexpected work of salvation for us.
This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
If the season of Lent is a journey, Holy Week is the destination.
If we just say to God, “We don’t get it, please explain,” he will. He will send us a preacher to point us to his words for more clarification.
The needs of the people remain the same, but now the people are you and me. We still sin, and that sin causes so many challenges in our lives.
It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
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.