Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Mt 5:10
A few days ago I received several texts from well-meaning Christians regarding Ferdie Flores, a missionary in East Timor. The body of all the texts alleged he was about to be executed, by beating, in the next day or so and asked for prayer. These were evidently ultimately forwarded from a single point, as the message was consistent, and had my friends and relatives concerned for this man.
Being the sceptic I am, I wasn’t so willing to believe the content of the text. I rummaged around the web, and found the web site of Baptist International Missions, Inc., a missionary organisation which is supporting Ferdie Flores – no mention of his pending execution at all though. Surely, if this man was to be executed, something would’ve appeared on their site? Rather than make my thoughts public though, I quietly passed on my sceptical views to those who had forwarded these texts to me. After all, it would’ve been awful if these texts were true and I’d publicly rubbished them without concrete proof.
As it turns out, it was a hoax. Ferdie Flores is alive and well. Reliable accounts are now being indexed in the search engines, such as this one, and BIMI has also issued a statement.
This is not to say that Christians are not persecuted, nor am I trying to say we shouldn’t pray for those who are persecuted. Ferdie Flores should be prayed for, as he does suffer persecution, while he continues to do a very difficult work for God.
However, as Christians we should be careful to test everything which is said to see if it is true.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 Jn 4:1
We have very little excuse when we have ready access to information and organisations like Christian Solidarity Worldwide do all the hard work for us.
I am rather irrited that a hoax can occupy so much time, energy and resources of Christians, especially when it means that real persecution is overlooked and goes unnoticed.
:satisfied: thanks G, but rememeber a message from a consistantly reliable source is normally checked and confirmed beforehand (as in the case with my companion who forwarded the message)because (incidently) I have never recieved hoaxes from such people before, only verified statements -therefore i pass the buck of blame back a few stages :laugh: whether i should do or not… :doze:.. some of us are just less inclined to doubt..lets put it this way, even my mother believed the story -and she is one othe the most (wisely) sceptical people I know!
Good work with the research tho, 😉
I’m glad to see I’m not the only sceptic…I couldn’t quite bring myself to whole-heartedly believe the texts that I recieved from people, especially as they were sent on different days, I mean tomorrow never comes.
oh dear…I pressed sumbit before I’d finished writing there. :blush: and it sounds a bit harsh:O
Was just gonna say thanks for finding that stuff out. I’m glad to hear Ferdie Flores is still alive and well.
No worries. I end up doing the same thing sometimes!