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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You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.
Do our petitions move God?
Finding rest in God when the “what ifs”come calling
If Jesus did not rise, then religion is just religion — a mere anthropological phenomenon.
Christ Jesus brings his word and presence to where you are and he is even willing to do so through the likes of your personally present pastor.
When we forget that we live by promise, that's when the danger tends to creep in. Because failing to embrace promise means we usually fall back into notions of luck, or even worse--into works.
Luther's emphasis on the need for sinners to have preachers who can provide them with the comfort and support they need for their faith in Jesus Christ and life is as relevant today as it was in his time.