That title is in quotes because it was taken directly from a blog post over at the Spiritual Sounding Board and I wouldn’t want the host over there to think I had stolen something. The rest of the blog post was a statement :

“Todd Friel wants you to question whether or not a person is really a Christian.”

A graphic taken from Todd Friel’s Web site:

and the following:

“Julie Anne (SSB Host) posted this picture on the SSB Facebook page and wonders, “Should we be testing people when they tell us they are Christians?” What do you think?”

“As far as Kathi (post author?) is concerned, I cannot get past the name “Wretched.” To me it suggests guilt and shame. I’ve watched a few of Friel’s videos and I get that impression from him as well. If you don’t have the right doctrine, you are wretched.”

Not only is the above comment concerning Todd Friel and his ministry a complete fabrication, the majority of the 71 comments that follow are equally vacuous and frankly ,really embarrassing in terms of intellectual honesty. They mostly attack Todd Friel from the foot of a vary large straw man that is sure that the questions are direct challenges to the professed salvation of the Christian to whom they are addressed.  I believe all three to be very reasonable questions for a couple of reasons.

First of all, not everyone who ‘professes’ Christ ‘possesses’ Christ. The preciousness of Christ to the professing Christian is an indicator of the depth of his or her faith . Spending time in personal Bible reading and study also indicates the depth of one’s faith, as well as being a genuine disciple who wants to learn from his/her master teacher.

None of the above questions would bother me. In fact, I would welcome them as opportunities to share with another believer what I believe and why I believe it, and at the same time grow closer to a brother. On the other hand, if I didn’t know what being ‘born again’ really meant, realized that Jesus wasn’t really very precious to me, or I rarely spent time alone with my Bible I would be offended, much like many of the commenters at the original blog at SSB.

Also I can envision asking all three questions from a heart burdened with the knowledge that many, many young people these days are coming to Christ for all of the wrong reasons and have been deceived into believing they are saved when they are far from it. They come to Christ because of the ‘worldly attractiveness’ of a local ‘seeker friendly’ church, from ‘’preachers in torn blue jeans and t-shirts to ‘worship ‘ that more closely resembles a rock concert , to being sold a bill of goods promising their ‘best life now’ or  achieving their special purpose and/or ‘dream destiny’.

So yes, asking intuitive questions of a professing Christian is not necessarily bad, and in fact serves a couple of really good purposes, none of which are directly ‘challenging’ someone’s claim to be a Christian. 

I only wish I had been able to comment at SSB. I seem to have been banned from SSB for quite some time, after I posted favorable comments concerning things I am supposed to dislike (Calvinism, John MacArthur, complementarianism, and a few others). At least I don’t get a ‘Comment’ option when I visit, which is actually rarely. It’s only because something from SSB popped up in my inbox that I ended up there early this morning.

At any rate, I did take the opportunity to answer the question about Todd Friel’s questions, just not at SSB (what spirit?), but here at The Battle Cry.