Matthew stands at the seam of right division. Peter Ruckman hands much of it back to Israel — the Sermon on the Mount, the Disciples' Prayer, conditional forgiveness — then pours the Body of Christ back in through his method of spiritual application. How a book gets wrongly divided even by a man who can see where its parts belong.

The tithe was Israel's law, never laid on the body of Christ — so what replaces it? Paul gives something freer than a percentage: cheerful, purposed, proportionate giving that flows from grace already received. This study shows where grace giving comes from, what governs it, and where the gift goes.

Daniel's fast, the clean and unclean of Leviticus, the back-to-Eden vegan plan — every so-called biblical diet borrows food rules God gave to other people under other programs. Rightly divided, none of them binds the Body of Christ, to whom God gave liberty at the table with thanksgiving.

Paul's words fallen from grace are taken as proof the saved can be lost. In their setting they mean almost the opposite of misbehavior: a fall toward law, not into sin. Rightly divided, the standing in grace cannot be lost — what falls is the walk, when a believer trades grace as his operating principle for the law.

The Bible speaks about marriage to mankind before the law, to Israel under the law and the kingdom, and to the Body of Christ under grace. Read as one rule to one people, it binds commandments God never gave us. Rightly divided, the Lord's strict word to Israel and Paul's word of grace each fall into place — and grace gives far more than the law.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, not a base it is rebuilt on. The righteous man under the law kept it; the man under grace has righteousness imputed without works. Paul withstood Peter at Antioch over a walk that put the Body back under Israel's law, and to rebuild that law is to make yourself a transgressor.

Can a saved person go on in the works of the flesh and still be saved? The question is really two: is he still saved, and what does it cost him? Paul's own warnings, the carnal Corinthians, and the answer to the Lordship lifestyle argument give a clear, rightly divided reply — security intact, walk and reward addressed honestly.

Paul calls his own writings the commandments of the Lord, yet says we are not under law but under grace. Both stand. A law conditions standing on performance and curses failure; Paul's commandments are given to sons already accepted, touch the walk but never the standing, come with the Spirit's power, and are fulfilled in liberty and love.