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 goal isn't to give kids a balanced or equal measure of each but to give the right medicine at the right time.
Three Lenten songs express the same astonishing wonder of a Lord who willingly suffers and dies.
On second thought: Keep Lent, but sacrifice your concept of it.
Due to his self-reliance, King Zedekiah ended his days as a lowly prisoner in Babylon.
The Psalm now is this: as Christ suffered and then was exalted, so we are also in him.
No matter how stringent one's "regulations" — "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" (Col. 2:21) — the sinful nature that resides in everyone's heart is untamable by self-effort alone.
In response to the Lord's undeserved love, Manasseh looked to him as the true God.
God’s people get the warm feast of victory, while God’s meal is prepared cold.
How intentional will we be about utilizing gospel spaces that already inescapably communicate?
Sometimes the old story is the one we need to hear again and again.
Uzziah was showing the most dangerous kind of pride – a pride wrapped up under the guise of religious service.
Senkbeil is a pastor’s pastor, a master of the art of pastoral care.