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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This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023).
God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
In Memory of My Friend, James Arne Nestingen
While they speak on various aspects of the preaching task, these essays share a unity in their authors’ commitment to the fact that the preaching of Jesus Christ is not simply motivational, informational, or inspirational; it is the delivery of God’s promise into the ears of those who if left to themselves are deaf to the Creator’s voice.
Regardless of why they happen, sermon flops do happen to all of us. So, what should you do next?
Christmas wrecks all attempts to penetrate God’s hiddenness and seek Him out in Heaven. He comes to us clothed in our humanity.
Augustine makes plain that the overarching aim of style is not to be showy; it’s to be an instrument of Spirit-led persuasion.
When the church is a political actor, the gospel doesn’t have the final word.
Neither attentive note-taking, nor appreciative head-nods, nor even sympathetic tears satisfy the purpose of preaching. Only lives that are changed by the Word working in the hearts of God’s people can do that.
Whatever else may be said of Advent, it is above all devoted to making Christ known as the Lord who condescends to come as Brother to and Savior of sinners.
For Christians, Advent is the time when the Church patiently prepares for the coming of the Great King, Jesus the Christ.