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 words “for you” are what deliver burdened hearts into the glorious light of freedom, for they deliver the precious, life-giving cargo of God’s relentless grace to each of us.
The minister’s clothing represents his office of service, derived from the ministry of Christ, and never himself.
Our stories are decidedly unserious when viewed through the lens of the seriousness of God’s affairs. Jesus put the matter succinctly: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Human affairs are not serious in and of themselves. Rather, they are consequential because they garner meaning and significance within the overarching story of God and man.
“Our “good destruction” happened about 2,000 years ago as Jesus Christ arose from the tomb and crushed the head of Satan, broke the jawbones of death, and snapped the chains of sin. ”
If I don't preach Christ, then there's really no reason anyone should roll out of bed on Sunday to hear anything I have to say.
Something happens around the table that changes those who are given a seat at the table.
And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”
Maundy Thursday is only the beginning of the long, grievous road Jesus must take before “it is finished” three days later.
Season eight of the Game of Thrones has begun. It's the long-awaited finale, the end of the story we have all long been eagerly waiting for even as we fear the impending winter.
How are things at your church? Are people getting saved in droves, are there mass baptisms every Sunday, is giving at an all-time high, and are your members model citizens and pillars of the community?
When Lamech named his newborn son Noah—which means “rest”—he said, “This one shall give us comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed”
Being a member of a church connects people to the whole reason the church has for existing: that we might obtain justifying faith in Jesus Christ through Word and Sacrament.