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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Exemplified here are two misunderstandings about the forgiveness and graciousness of God among some Christians.
There are a few occasions in the Bible where the curtain lifts, and we get to peer into the inner workings of the Divine Court.
Our crucified Lord makes it clear that the widow’s worthless giving was far greater than a million dollars because she gave all she had.
Assurance of salvation may be the single greatest struggle people have confessed to me. It isn't surprising.
There were pictures of her bathed in the sun of South Padre, sand between her toes, arm-in-arm with beautiful friends
This Jesus healed the blind and the lame and the mute and the barren and raised the dead.
If we get past Sunday School moralizing what do we discover in the Old Testament?
Our Father works through us to meet the needs of others and to meet our need for Savior Jesus.
There in that moment, the waters of baptism reached down deep into the forsaken path of the grave with a man whose body and mind could no longer hold onto any reality otherwise.
Some lie and tell us that to sin is to be ourselves. But it is not. Sin is not natural to humanity.
Jesus is the end of religion.
Following him will also mean keeping our eyes locked on him so unswervingly that we don’t have the time or energy to be standing on tiptoes, peeping over fences into other people’s troubles and struggles.