Aurora theater shooting at The Dark Knight Rises: Jessica Ghawi, radio intern, ID'd as victim

 @BackOffImStarving Precisely why no one's faith and trust should be placed on institutions.  My personal conviction is that out of nominal Christians around the world about 10 percent are genuine.  It's part of our nature to cleave to cultural norms.  They are familiar and we attach something of our self-identity to them.  That type of attachment to Christianity occurs all the time.  Yet, Scripture knows nothing of nominal attachment.  It is rabidly assertive and protective of the notion that man must be born again.  Any attachment to God by name only, without God Himself having entered into a person, is outright rejected.  This is why Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." 

Your concern about the wrong-doing, and/or passive permissiveness in standing against evil is exactly what you get from unchanged men who wear the garment of religion.  It never works.  Religion is powerless to change a man.  It has never succeed.  This is why so much evil can be done, and has been done, for religion, and within religion.

God has a better way.  Instead of religious attachment , which leaves a man unchanged, why not transform a man from his imprisonment to sin?  Why not set him free from the tyranny of sin?  This is exactly what Jesus does to a man who comes to Him.  There is no other way, no other hope, no other provision.

It's either a man being propelled in a new direction

Jesus always resisted man's predilection for religion.  Man has always had a bent toward that kind of construct.  Jesus refused time and again to be imposed as a religious leader.  He came to transform lives, not to set up another religion.  It is man that has formalized, what Jesus started, into a religious construct.  I'm not saying there should be no churches, they are good and profitable.  But this business of thinking you are "good with God" because you call yourself one thing or another would be laughable were it not so tragic.

People live in willful ignorance of the truth because they, having access to it, pretend that they are too busy with life to bother.  They are ultimately responsible for their choices.  We cannot plead innocent ignorance in our day and age.

As far as your comment about "spouting scripture" is concerned, I'm not sure if that's in reference to me or someone else. 

If it's to me I can only simply reply that none of what I've said has been in reference to the terrible tragedy in Aurora.

If it's in reference to someone else I can't really comment on that.  Each person brings to the table their convictions, and whether misguided or not they have obviously felt a need to go there.  Hopefully it's born out of a genuine desire to contribute profitably to a discussion, even if it falls short of the intended end.

 @DonkeyHotay Both Deuteronomy 18:20 and Zechariah 13:3 parallel a like problem.  To me this is probably the worst sin man can possibly engage in.  Anyone pretending to speak for God, when he knows that he is but representing himself, best think twice (check what happens even today with some TV preachers, but that's another story!).  Imagine the terrible consequences for the people if they believe, in good faith, that the deceptive utterances of a false prophet is in fact from God.  That could never be permitted.  We mustn't only look at the punishment meted out.  We must try to understand the totality inherent in the picture.  We must see all that is involved in these strict and harsh penalties.

Why won't God tolerate sin, resulting in these these penalties?

1. He is Holy

2. He is Just

3. He is Merciful

How is it that He is merciful in being so harsh?  Because...

1. The sinner himself will be harmed by his own sin (in some cases, depending on the sin)

2. The sinner's sin will negatively affect others.  Often leading to a chain-reaction of damage.

And so it is that God nips the problem in the bud.  He will not tolerate a rot to set in.  If He does, then He has been neither Holy, Just, Merciful/Good.  And man himself suffers most.

 @DonkeyHotay All Scripture must, by default, be read interpretively.  There is no way to get around that.  Human beings have to interpret, and add meaning, to anything that crosses their senses and into their minds.  The mind functions that way.  It's how it processes and properly files information.  There is always a certain subjectivity that can misguide a well-intentioned reader.  However, common sense and an eye to context makes Scripture readily understandable.  I'm not ignoring some problem passages that require deeper delving, but that's very small percentage-wise.  The passage you quoted is not referring to all of Scripture, per se, but specifically to its prophetic elements.  Not its teachings, not its historical accounts, not its poetic or philosophical compendiums, only prophecy.  Furthermore, and more importantly, the context surrounding that verse exposes the meaning.  verse 21 says, "For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit".  So, the context illuminates what was meant in verse 20.  It's not referring at all to OUR interpretation of it, but to its source not being from the prophet himself, but from God.  That's why the NIV translation clarifies things by translating verse 20 this way:  "You must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things."

Having said all this, the passage we talked about where Jesus talks about the Law and appropriates, clearly, its accomplishment to Himself, hardly needs any interpretation at all.  It's very self-explanatory.

 @DonkeyHotay I am not saying that the moral instructions of the Law are of no value and do not apply to the Christian.  What I am saying is that the Law is no longer a means to God.  It has been abolished in that regard.  Access to God is through Christ who fulfilled the Law, not through the Law which has proven to be an insurmountable barrier.  The Law now is in operation internally, and automatically.  Just like a computer program of sorts.  It emanates from desire and not from obligation.  However, it still involves the will.  It is in this respect that man is still to keep it.  But if he is in Christ he now desires it, whereas before it was a burdensome obligation because it didn't mesh with his nature.  That nature being transformed, in Christ, now affords man with a capacity to not only keep it but desire to keep it.  So, the Law still applies, in a radical new way.

Any attempt to keep God's requirements in order to connect with Him is the very foundation of religion and is abhorrent in its very essence.  Its purpose was never to achieve that end but to reveal to man the degree of his fallenness.  That he has tried to keep it and can't is the very message being sent by its existence.  In frustration man was driven to an another solution, which is his only alternative -- Christ.

 @DonkeyHotay That was in reference to the requirements of the law in the Old Testament.  If you read the passage again (Matthew 5:17-18)  You will realize that Jesus Himself fulfilled what couldn't be fulfilled by ordinary man.  He didn't say his people had to keep it, he said He had to keep it.  He then said, that He had kept it, thereby fulfilling the gargantuan requirements of a Holy God.  If you are in Christ, Christ's fulfillment of the incredible weight of the Law, applies to you as credit.  Christ's victory over the Law is credited to the Christian, because he is, "in Christ".  Anyone who decides to go it alone, and rejects Christ, is still bound by the requirements of the Old Testament Law.  Good luck with that, and let me know how it works for you!  No one has ever kept it, and no one ever will.  God gave it as a means of communicating to man just how distant he is from Him.  How incapable, how desperate, and how completely dependent he is on God's mercy. 

In other words, man is dependent on what Christ has accomplished, precisely because man himself is in a state of moral bankruptcy that incapacitates him from availing himself of any recourse to rid himself of his sin.  If man could do it himself Christ would not have been needed.  God having communicated man's proper state to him then proceeded to reveal, and put into action, a better way.  Let Christ do what you couldn't, and by Christ entering your life, the credit is then applied to you.  With no further requirements of any kind (this is where religion, ritual, superstition, and the law are abolished).  God undertakes a genuine transformation on the inside of the person, freeing him from the tyranny and control of sin, and being able, at long last to enjoy life to a much better degree.  This is why God said, "I will put my law in their minds and write it in their heart" (Jer.31:33).  This was looking forward to the days of Christ when He would introduce a new way of dealing with the law.  It would not longer be a requirement, and would no longer be external, and ritualistic.  It would now be the very heartbeat of the Christian making its morality a thing of desire and not of obligation.  This is why Jesus said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light".  That's because man would now be free from trying to live a life weighed down by religious requirements and the oppression of his own sin.

God put you here and He loves you and offers you the same thing.  All it takes is a simple acceptance that Jesus died for you.  Acknowledge to God that you can't go it alone and that you need Christ, that He is your only recourse.  Invite Him in and watch the miracle.  A transformation begins to occur where religion plays no part.

 @DonkeyHotay  @joefaia which scripture does that come from ?

 @joefaia  @Tangible666 thank you for your post

 @RobertChase Institutional Christianity can certainly be religious.  I'm referring to the New Testament version of a human interaction with God.  There is no religiosity involved.  Jesus condemned the religious zealots of his day.  Look carefully at the teachings of Jesus and you'll see no religion.  You have misunderstood the vibrant dynamic that is a relationship with God in Christ.  I don't like religion because its a poor representation of what is available in Christ.  It just gets in the way and muddies the waters with confusion.

It's within human nature to build religions and to be religious.  It always starts with man.  True Christianity, not the christendom around the world, starts with God, and that's what gives man hope.  He is no longer left to his darkened imaginations of what he things his deity(ies) require.

 @DonkeyHotay You and I are not so far apart on our assessment of religion.  I, on the other hand, am not prepared to mistreat or ridicule other people.  People have value, whether or not they are misguided.  My assessment of religion is that it is man's ways of trying to access and appease a God they do not know.  Therefore, it is full of ritual, superstition, and shots in the dark.  Christianity, is God reaching down to man; revealing Himself; indicating a solution to man's greatest need, his sin; and providing a way to change that person's life, without that person having to engage in any religious, or ritualistic nonsense.  The following video illustrates escape from religion into a real, meaningful relationship with God, through Christ:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuLMVzGMpc0&feature=share