Eli Lucas

Indie artist w/ 400M+ streams as “eli.” Later saved by Christ. Now a devoted Christian, Bible PhD student, and teacher. Married with cats.

[Scott Roberts @ScottRoberts]

This image confronts us with two of the greatest scandals of Christianity.

The first scandal is that none of us are good enough for heaven.

Most people compare themselves to serial killers, dictators, rapists, and criminals and conclude, "At least I'm not that bad." But God does not compare us to Jeffrey Dahmer. He compares us to His own perfect holiness. Scripture says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The proud businessman, the moral neighbor, the avid atheist, the faithful churchgoer, and the murderer all stand guilty before a holy God apart from Christ.

The second scandal is that God saves anyone at all.

The real question is not, "How could God save someone like Dahmer if he truly repented and believed?" The real question is, "How could God save any of us?" Every person deserves judgment. Every person deserves separation from God. Salvation is never owed. It is never earned. It is pure grace from beginning to end.

That is what makes the gospel so offensive to human pride. It tells the worst sinner that he can be forgiven through Christ, and it tells the best-looking sinner that he cannot save himself.

The cross levels everyone. We are all condemned in Adam, and the only hope for any of us is Jesus Christ.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

I wonder what it would take for people like this to publicly turn on Trump. If not blasphemy of Christ, then what?

[𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐒 @Antunes1]

The mind of a Trump supporter.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

Standing up for your personal principles at potential great cost to yourself demonstrates incredible integrity and authenticity.

But that is all negated and made entirely inauthentic when you only do it to seek social credit from your tribe. You're allowed to stand up for what you believe in without loudly virtue signaling for your gold star.

[america's local band cheekface @cheekfaceREAL]

So a couple weeks ago a casting agency reached out to us wanting to cast a “credible, tight-knit band” for an ad, but didn’t tell us who the ad was for. Turned out they liked us … but then they revealed it was an ad for AT&T, which is one of ICE’s big contractors. So we said no.

[Melissa the Hopeful🏠Homemaker @BiblicalBeauty]

Powerful and personal reflections from Francis Schaeffer on prayer, suffering, and the sovereignty of God during his battle with cancer in 1981:

"God is not a dispensing machine. God is a personal God, and I must allow Him to answer my prayers in the light of His wisdom instead of my limitedness."

Franky Schaeffer: "And that's not a cop-out?"

Schaeffer: "Not at all. It's rooted in the heart of all things and that is, He's infinite; I'm finite. I'll tell you something, nothing could terrify me more, and I'm being very serious, nothing could terrify me more than that I could ask for anything today and get it, because I don't know enough."

Franky: "Including, for your own health?"

Schaeffer: "Oh, absolutely. Just as much as for anything."

Franky: "Are you willing to say that as a person who, ok, let's face it, has cancer that's serious enough so it could be killing you?"

Schaeffer: "Yeah, of course...

If I could wave a wand or push a button and get rid of it, in one sense, of course I'd do it. Who wants cancer? Let's not kid ourselves. It's no pleasure to live with this thing on top my head all the time...

But on the other hand, more profoundly, I think I can honestly say sitting here that I would rather trust God's wisdom than mine."

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

John 12:32 is not the "solution" to John 6:44.

12:32 says Jesus will draw all people. 6:44 says the ones who are drawn are also raised. If 12:32 means that every single human will be drawn in the same exact sense that John 6:44 means, then that means every single person is "raised" (i.e., saved). As such, using John 12:32 as an antidote to John 6:44 is to affirm universalism.

Many exegetes affirm that John 12:32's "all people" refers to "Jew and Gentile alike," rather than every human being who ever will exist indiscriminately. The context of the broader passage in John 12 seems to indicate this, given Jesus is speaking to the Gentiles. He is trying to tell them that his work at the cross will soon extend the covenant to them.

[Travis M Snow (Dept. of Eschatology) @travismsnow]

One of the great paradoxes of Bible study is that about 50% of the truth can be discerned through surface-level reading and the other 50% cannot. For that last 50%, you really have to work hard to study, and not just read, the text. You have to jettison presuppositions, understand historical context, get into biblical languages, know how to compare dozens of passages at one time, etc. to arrive at something closer to the truth. Plus, you have to find the right teachers who can guide you in that process, because not everyone is called to be a biblical scholar.

And being on X really awakens one to the tragedy that many Christians have no concept of biblical studies beyond reading the Bible. They think that if they quote a verse they have proven something, when 50% of the time that verse doesn't mean anything close to what they think it means.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

Respectfully, your initial claim was that understanding this background would end talking points overnight (a very strong claim). In such an instance, the analogy is DOING theology. You're letting it operate as an interpretive control. Background context doesn't do that.

The bottom line is that if patronage is merely a background analogy, it cannot end talking points. But if it DOES end talking points, then the analogy is being used to determine how grace and faith operate. You cannot have it both ways.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

The idea that Paul reduces salvation to a Roman patron-client system is absurd.

Yes, Paul spoke in terms that people would understand. No, Paul is not saying that divine grace is a reciprocal exchange.

Faith is more than loyalty offered back in a transaction.

[Nathan Bozeman @NathanBozeman2]

I wish more people knew grace/faith language was an analogy referring to the patronage system in Rome.

Talking points like this would stop being made overnight.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

Yes, it's an analogy. But you're letting background context control the entire theology. You're letting an interesting cultural observation redefine the entire nature of a believer's response.

"Reciprocity" refers to obligation and social exchange. Obedience/response is out of love, not repayment.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

How is this a logical analogy?

Is God's act of drawing someone to himself by his grace really the same as a guy offering someone a free car?

[EvanPaul @EvanPaul05]

If I offer you a new car today, free of charge, and you decline it, was that up to you?

If you accept it, was it up to you?

Receiving His gift is up to you

WHOSOEVER

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

@S0lide0gloria @RisingDisciples His tweets pop up for me every now and again and it's clear he criticizes Calvinism without understanding what Calvinists believe.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

If you define "total depravity" as the inability to choose God, then yes, Scripture clearly affirms this inability-- for the NATURAL person. This is an essential part of what you are calling the Adamic fallen nature.

If you recognize that Romans 3 says we don't even naturally SEEK God, then how could you affirm that we can naturally CHOOSE God?

But clearly, at SOME point, someone is capable of making a choice. I agree we make a choice, but it is not within our natural capacity, independent of God's grace and initiative, to do so. The emphasis here is on the distinction between what man is capable of naturally in his flesh, and what he requires the Spirit to accomplish.

Man is indeed without excuse. Simultaneously, they are unable to choose righteousness on their own since no one is righteous and no one seeks God. This is precisely what creates such a significant problem. We are dependent on grace, we are dependent on Christ.

Because no one seeks God, God in his mercy seeks us. God seeks ALL men generally through the open invitation of the gospel, and SOME men particularly/effectively through what Paul calls election. The difference is that the ones drawn generally lack the ability to respond because of their Adamic fallen will. The ones predestined to election, the ones "drawn" by Jesus in the PARTICULAR and effective sense of John 6:44, are the ones who respond affirmatively in their choice (they have been "given" to Jesus, John 6:37). It is God's effective grace that makes a difference and enables faith, "it is not of yourselves, so that none may boast" (Eph. 2:8-9).

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

What you are calling Augustinianism is simply Pauline theology.

Romans 3:9-12; no one is righteous, no one seeks God.

Romans 8:7-8; the natural person in their flesh is unable to submit to God or please him.

Ephesians 2:1-3; humans are naturally dead in sin and deserving of wrath.

If we naturally deserve wrath, doesn't that mean we are naturally enemies of God?

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

And yet this comment is inherently expressing a doctrinal statement.

Even rejecting doctrine is a doctrinal position.

I would ask you: how do you even know who Jesus is without doctrine? Claiming "Jesus is the Son of God" is a doctrinal statement.

It's also wrong to suggest Jesus didn't teach, or wasn't concerned with, doctrine. He quite literally teaches doctrine nonstop throughout the Gospels.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

God inherently approves of future happenings by their happening. If God is all-powerful, and if he sovereignly wanted something else to happen, then it would happen.

Biblical foreknowledge is not "looking into the future and having advance knowledge." God knows the future because he is in control of the future. God does not know the future because he is a super-psychic. He is not a passive observer, he declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

God's plan from the beginning was for there to be kings. Genesis 17:6. God promises Abraham kings will descend from him.

It is also true that, initially, Israel rejected God through their desire for a king. 1 Samuel 8:7-8.

Both things are true: God intended for a monarchy to come into existence, and its existence initially came about through the people's sin and rejection of God.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

@JCRyle Weird take. How very arbitrary.

[David Reece @RealDavidReece]

This is the heresy of Pelagianism.

If there is no imputation of sin from the first Adam then there is no imputation of righteousness from the second Adam.

If there is no corruption of nature from the first Adam then there is no restoration of nature from the second Adam.

Christ, as the second Adam, pays for the sins of His people and provides a righteousness to them by imputation for justification, by faith alone.

He provides an inward righteousness by infusion in sanctification through His Word and Spirit.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

@JCBibleInsights @jdahlxn @uptown_twp @Pastor_Gabe @jmcgill56 Reformed theology does not teach that God has rendered anyone unable to believe.

[Eli Lucas @imelilucas]

It is dramatically incorrect to suggest that "Paul is defending God's right to redefine covenant membership." Paul is concerned with proving that the covenant has NOT been redefined... He goes to great lengths to demonstrate that there has always been a distinction between the children of the flesh and the children of God. What determines that distinction is God's mercy upon whom he wills. Participation in the spiritual covenant and having a direct relationship with God by grace through faith, granted to Isaac and Jacob but not Ishmael and Esau, has always depended on "him who calls" (v. 11).

I agree that, contextually, Paul's question is about why the Israelites are largely rejecting Jesus. But what does it mean to reject Jesus? It is to not inherit salvation . So, why are the Jews not believing and being granted salvation, but the Gentiles are? Paul's anguish in the chapter clearly indicates he sees the Jews as largely being outside the scope of salvation.

Paul makes clear in v. 6 he has salvation in mind: "Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." In other words: salvation isn't a birthright. Jews are promised the physical covenant but not guaranteed the spiritual covenant. Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, and Esau were all made into great nations (physical covenant based on lineage). But only Jacob and Isaac continued the spiritual covenant (having a relationship with God by grace through faith as children of promise).

Further, this is not about nations. Does Paul have nations in mind when he speaks of Jacob and Esau's parents, conception, birth, and individual works? No. He doesn't.

What about when he speaks of Pharaoh, an individual, as an example of someone God hardened? You say God did not create him for destruction. Rom. 9:17 says the opposite-- God raised him up for the purpose of demonstrating his power. This is inevitably through destruction as a result of God's wrath.

What about the vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy? All individuals.

Who are the vessels of mercy? These are the individuals who receive God's grace, and subsequently inherit salvation as "children of God"-- a phrase Paul used in Romans 8 to speak of those glorified in Christ (salvation language). Who are the ones "called" in Rom. 9:24? The same ones called and glorified in Rom. 8:29-33. Salvation language.

Plus, if Paul is speaking of salvation (which we clearly see when we allow him to define his subject at the end of Romans 8 + when we allow him to define his own terminology), then he can't be speaking about nations. Salvation is applied personally to people. Not nations.

This is not "Calvinism." It's simply reading the Bible in context and performing exegesis rather than eisegesis.

Some of you are way too concerned with "combatting Calvinism" that you distort your ability to interpret Scripture properly.

[𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗢 𝗔 @RisingDisciples]

Romans 9 is often presented as the Calvinist TRUMP CARD for election & reprobation.

Read it carefully - and the spell breaks.

Paul isn’t teaching individual predestination to heaven or hell. He’s defending God’s right to define His covenant people - corporately & covenantally.