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Direct Answer Based on David Bercot’s teaching, many of us absorb “grace” as a church-culture slogan (“unmerited favor,” “if you do anything it’s not grace”) rather than from how the word is actually used in Scripture and early sources. Reopening those definitions would cost us comfort and popularity, because it requires resisting “500 years of indoctrination” and testing cherished phrases against evidence.

Support from Transcript:

• He says definitions determine outcomes: “You can write the law any way you want, but let me define the terms and I’ll win every time,” and applies it to the Bible: “Whoever defines the words… essentially defines what the Bible teaches.”
• He notes we’re often trained to think *charis* means “unmerited favor,” plus extra theology from “whole articles” that treat it like a “super word.”
• He warns that in Christianity, success comes from persuading crowds: “If you can convince most people that your definitions are right, you’ll gain the most followers… But… if your definitions are not true… you lose eternity.”
• He claims Luther’s definitions became ingrained through “sermons, commentaries, books, study Bibles… hymns, and praise songs.”
• He urges hard rethinking: “It takes enormous resistance to break free… I didn’t just instantly change my understanding of grace overnight.”