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

The resurrection of Jesus encompasses the total and comprehensive glorification of a human being, not merely his restoration.
Everything in Scripture is God revealing himself to his people, you and me.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
Caesar boasted: “I came. I saw. I conquered.” Christ can rightly say: “I came. I saved. I ascended.”
We live for the most part, on the strength of our moral fiber, under the law, by our zeal for God and all that which tickles our proud fancy.
Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.
May you believe, in this thin-line world, that this Jesus is for you, not against you.
What might Christians of the Reformation tradition think of claims like these about the nature of salvation?
Although Jesus bodily ascended and is hidden from our earthly eyes, he is not far off.
This is an excerpt from part two of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
The story of salvation is the true story of God doing his unexpected work of salvation for us.
Paul is writing as a man who has already lived a life of law-keeping while denying the resurrection.