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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What might Christians of the Reformation tradition think of claims like these about the nature of salvation?
What greater legacy could you claim than that of Mark? Listen to the Word. Learn from Jesus.
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).
This is an excerpt from the prologue of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
Past, present, and future are tied together in Christ.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Common Places in Christian Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly,” edited by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2023).
We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
Authentic proclamation, then, is the love of Christ for our souls, which we have seen and experienced through the under-shepherd’s pastoral care put into the words of Christ Himself.
All of Scripture, every last syllable of it, is meant to drive us to "consider Jesus," the One who comes to "make us right" by gifting us his righteousness.
The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.