Grace

25
Jul
2026

Rescuing Grace and Faith from Churchification

Grace and Faith

You’ve heard “for by grace you are saved through faith” from Ephesians 2:8 so many times it barely registers as a sentence anymore. It’s on coffee mugs. It’s cross-stitched and hanging on someone’s wall. If someone stopped you on the street and asked you to explain, in your own words, what grace and faith are and how they work together, could you? What does it mean that grace works through faith? Would you be able to explain that? A lot of Christians would struggle because these words have been repeated so frequently, we stop thinking about what they mean. They are now “churchy” words that are almost cliché.

But you have to look past the cliché to see what this passage teaches. Once you do, the picture is both simple and solid.

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Posted by Eddie Lawrence in Ephesians, Faith, Grace
01
Mar
2021

Dying You Shall Die

Dying You Shall Die

God gave Adam and Eve all the trees of the garden to eat from except for one. He told them they must not eat from one particular tree:

“16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” (Gen. 2:16–17 ESV)

Of course, they did eat from the forbidden tree, but they did not die the day they ate from it. What’s going on here? Why didn’t they die on the day they ate? Did God say one thing and mean another? If God meant what He said, why did He let them off the hook? Wasn’t God’s penalty for eating from this tree capital punishment? 

There are three common interpretations that attempt to reconcile what God said would happen with what actually transpired. 

  1. Adam and Eve died immediately in the sense that they lost their immortality.
  2. Adam and Eve began the process of aging and dying.
  3. Adam and Eve died spiritually. 

I propose that none of these three explanations are correct and that God did indeed mean that He would enact judgement in the form of death on the very day they ate.

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Posted by Eddie Lawrence in Genesis, Grace, Judgement
25
Jun
2016

Am I a Legalist?

According to a recent study, almost half of people with high blood pressure don’t know they have it. The longer it goes on the more damage is done to your body. Legalism is kind of like this. One of the reasons that legalism is so dangerous is because people don’t realize they are a legalist. Are you a legalist? Take the 25 question quiz below and find out.

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Posted by Eddie Lawrence in Grace, Legalism
24
Apr
2016

Grace vs. Legalism

Dove

It’s difficult for people to find biblically sound middle ground on some topics. If cheap grace is at one extreme, then legalism is at the other. Although legalism is not a word found in the Bible, the concept of legalism certainly is. Legalism is the heresy that motivated Paul’s letter to the disciples in Galatia. The dictionary defines legalism as:

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Posted by Eddie Lawrence in Grace, Legalism
24
Apr
2016

Grace and Law

Dove

Law is a very important part of several covenants documented in the Bible. The Old Covenant was given by God through Moses to the ancient Israelites. It was a national covenant and only Jews were subject to it. More than 600 commandments comprised the law under this covenant!

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Posted by Eddie Lawrence in Grace