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.

All Articles

For you who are struggling to navigate grief, to cope with pain, or breathe through anxiety, the gospel announces that there is a person whose heart throbs for you.
Eucatastrophe is the coming untrue of all sin, evil, and death. And where that starts is the empty tomb of the risen Jesus.
In Israel today, it's still possible to witness the same scene the disciples saw 2000 years ago when the Bedouin shepherds bring their flocks home from various pastures at the end of the day.
The notion that your goodness is “good enough” to make you right with God is a lie straight from the father of lies himself.
When Jesus appeared again to his disciples on that first Easter evening and again a week later with Thomas and the Emmaus disciples, what did Jesus show them? His hands.
Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.
Bathed in the waters of baptism, you are placed in God's path of totality, a path he won for each and every one of us.
Jesus continues to do the same for me and for you as he did for his disciples. He still shows up for us. He still speaks his peace to us.
Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
Paul knew that, without the resurrection, the Christian life was a “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video.
This article is written by guest contributor, Aaron Boerst.
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.”