Bible Trivia

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Bible Quiz for Groups and Churches

Pass and Play runs on one iPhone. Add up to six names and the app says whose turn it is, keeps the scores, and ranks the room at the end. There is no timer. Head to Head is two phones and a six-character code; the room is deleted an hour after it is created. Below is a mixed round you can also read aloud. 12 questions, easy and medium, from across the bank.

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Questions and answers

Medium Bible Numbers & Statistics

Which is the shortest book of the Old Testament, at a single chapter of twenty-one verses?

  1. AObadiahCorrect
  2. BHaggai
  3. CNahum
  4. DMalachi

Answer: Obadiah

Obadiah 1 · ESV

Obadiah runs to one chapter of twenty-one verses, an oracle against Edom for standing aside and gloating while Jerusalem was plundered. It is the shortest book in the Old Testament by any measure, and the only Old Testament book with no chapter division at all.

The whole book is Obadiah 1:1–21, moving from the charge against Edom to the promise that the kingdom shall be the Lord's.

Why not this one. Haggai is short but runs to two chapters and thirty-eight verses, comfortably longer than Obadiah's single chapter, and its subject is the rebuilding of the temple rather than Edom.

Easy Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message

In what year was the article on the family added to the Baptist Faith and Message?

  1. A1963
  2. B1979
  3. C1998Correct
  4. D2000

Answer: 1998

BF&M 2000, Article XVIII · ESV

The family article was added in 1998 as an amendment to the 1963 statement. The 2000 revision then carried it over unchanged as Article XVIII. It was the only change made to the confession between 1963 and 2000, and it brought the count to eighteen.

The article draws on Genesis 2:15-25, Ephesians 5:21-33, and Ephesians 6:1-4. Its four paragraphs treat the family, marriage, husband and wife, and children.

Why not this one. The 2000 committee kept the family article but did not write it. Its chairman's letter says the committee proposed no new articles at all. The 2000 committee reprinted the article as adopted.

Medium Doctrine — Christ

The heresy of Eutychianism taught that Christ's two natures were merged into one new mixed nature. What is this error also called?

  1. AMonophysitismCorrect
  2. BMonothelitism
  3. CModalism
  4. DAdoptionism

Answer: Monophysitism

BF&M 2000, Article II.B · ESV

Monophysitism means one nature, from monos and physis. Eutyches taught that after the union the humanity was absorbed into the deity like a drop of honey in the sea, leaving a third thing that is neither God nor man. Chalcedon answered that the union happens without confusion and without change, so that Christ remains consubstantial with the Father in his deity and with us in his humanity.

BF&M 2000, Article II.B; Chalcedonian Definition (451)

Why not this one. The names differ by a syllable, so this is an easy slip. Monothelitism is the later seventh-century claim that Christ has only one will, put forward as a compromise after monophysitism had already been condemned, and rejected in its turn at Constantinople in 681.

Easy Doctrine — Christian Living

In Galatians 5, Paul sets the fruit of the Spirit against which list of behaviors?

  1. AThe works of the fleshCorrect
  2. BThe works of darkness
  3. CThe works of the devil
  4. DThe works of the law

Answer: The works of the flesh

Galatians 5:19–23 · ESV

Paul names the works of the flesh in verses 19-21 and the fruit of the Spirit in verses 22-23. The two lists are the outcomes of the two ways of walking he described in verse 16, and the grammar differs: works in the plural, and fruit in the singular.

Galatians 5:19–23, following the contrast between flesh and Spirit set out in 5:16–18.

Why not this one. Paul does use that phrase in Galatians, but for law-keeping offered as the ground of acceptance, and he sets it against faith rather than against the Spirit's fruit.

Easy Doctrine — Church & Ordinances

The Greek word ekklesia, translated "church" in the New Testament, means what?

  1. AAssemblyCorrect
  2. BBuilding
  3. CSacrifice
  4. DKingdom

Answer: Assembly

Acts 19:39 · ESV

Ekklesia names a gathered assembly of people. The church in the New Testament is never a structure but a company of believers called out and gathered, which is why Baptists locate the church in the members rather than the property.

The same word is used of a civic assembly in Acts 19:39, and of Israel gathered at Sinai in Acts 7:38. Both senses describe people convened.

Why not this one. English usage drifted toward the meeting house, but Scripture calls the people the building, made of living stones, and never applies ekklesia to bricks.

Medium Doctrine — God & the Trinity

Who was the bishop of Alexandria who spent much of his life, through repeated exiles, defending the Nicene confession of the Son's full deity?

  1. AAthanasiusCorrect
  2. BEusebius of Nicomedia
  3. COrigen
  4. DArius

Answer: Athanasius

Athanasius attended Nicaea as a young deacon and then defended its confession for decades, driven from his see five times as imperial favor shifted. His argument was soteriological as much as textual: only God can save, so if the Son were a creature, no one would be saved by him.

Athanasius' On the Incarnation and his Orations Against the Arians; the doctrine itself rests on texts like John 1:1 and Hebrews 1:3.

Why not this one. Eusebius of Nicomedia was on the other side, a patron of Arius who worked to have the Nicene party removed after the council.

Easy Doctrine — Grace & Election

According to 1 Peter 1:3, God has caused believers to be born again to what?

  1. AA living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the deadCorrect
  2. BA hope that must be renewed at each yearly feast
  3. CAn inheritance kept for them in the temple at Jerusalem
  4. DA hope that depends on how well they endure

Answer: A living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

1 Peter 1:3 · ESV

Peter says God caused the new birth according to his great mercy, and the hope it produces is anchored in an accomplished event outside us, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Peter 1:3–5, where the inheritance is imperishable and kept in heaven, and believers are guarded by God's power through faith.

Why not this one. Verse 5 says believers are guarded by God's power for a salvation ready to be revealed. Their endurance is real, but the inheritance is kept in heaven and does not rest on it.

Medium Doctrine — Last Things

In Romans 8:23, for what do believers who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as they wait?

  1. AAdoption as sons, the redemption of our bodiesCorrect
  2. BThe release of the soul from the body
  3. CThe dissolution of the present creation
  4. DThe unveiling of the man of lawlessness

Answer: Adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies

Romans 8:23 · ESV

Christian hope is not escape from the body but the redemption of it. Believers already have the Spirit as firstfruits, yet groan with the creation until that pledge is completed in a raised and glorified body.

Romans 8:18-25, where the creation itself waits with the same expectation, and 1 Corinthians 15 on the body raised imperishable.

Why not this one. That is the Greek philosophical hope, not the apostolic one. Paul does not long to be rid of the body but to have it redeemed, which is why the resurrection, and not death, is the goal of his waiting.

Medium Doctrine — Man & Sin

How does 1 Corinthians 15:47 describe the first man, in contrast with the second man from heaven?

  1. AFrom the earth, a man of dustCorrect
  2. BFrom the garden, a man of light
  3. CFrom the waters, a man of flesh
  4. DFrom the height, a man of glory

Answer: From the earth, a man of dust

1 Corinthians 15:47 · ESV

Paul contrasts the first man, from the earth and made of dust, with the second man, who is from heaven. Those in Adam bear the image of the man of dust; those in Christ will bear the image of the man of heaven in the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:45–49, with Genesis 2:7 standing behind the language of dust and of the man becoming a living creature.

Why not this one. That describes the second man, who is from heaven, not the first. Paul's whole argument turns on the first man being earthy and the second heavenly, and on believers bearing the second man's image in the resurrection.

Medium Doctrine — Salvation

In Romans 8:23 believers who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan as they wait eagerly for adoption as sons. How does Paul define that awaited adoption?

  1. AThe redemption of our bodiesCorrect
  2. BThe revealing of the sons of God to the nations
  3. CThe inheritance kept in heaven for them
  4. DThe daily renewal of the inner self

Answer: The redemption of our bodies

Romans 8:23 · ESV

Adoption is granted now, since believers already cry Abba, Father, yet it has a public consummation still to come when the body is raised. Justification has no such future instalment; adoption's remaining act is the resurrection, not a further verdict. It is given now and consummated then.

Romans 8:22-25, where creation and the church groan together awaiting redemption.

Why not this one. Paul mentions creation waiting for the revealing of the sons of God a few verses earlier, but he defines the awaited adoption itself as the redemption of our bodies.

Medium Doctrine — The Holy Spirit

According to 1 Corinthians 12:13, in one Spirit all believers were baptized into what?

  1. AOne bodyCorrect
  2. BOne priesthood
  3. COne kingdom
  4. DOne temple

Answer: One body

1 Corinthians 12:13 · ESV

Spirit baptism is what makes a person a member of Christ's body, and Paul says all were baptized in it — Jew and Greek, slave and free. It is therefore true of every believer at conversion, not a later second blessing granted to some.

1 Corinthians 12:13, addressed to a congregation Paul elsewhere in the same letter rebukes as immature.

Why not this one. Believers are indeed called a temple in 1 Corinthians 3:16, but the object of baptism in this verse is the body, the image Paul develops through the rest of the chapter.

Medium Doctrine — The Scriptures

What is the name of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, begun some two centuries before Christ and widely used by Jews and Christians in the first century?

  1. AThe SeptuagintCorrect
  2. BThe Vulgate
  3. CThe Peshitta
  4. DThe Masoretic Text

Answer: The Septuagint

The Septuagint carried the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek for Jews scattered across the Mediterranean, and it was the version many New Testament writers had at hand. A number of Old Testament citations in the New Testament follow its wording.

Its use is visible wherever a New Testament quotation differs slightly from the Hebrew, as in Hebrews 10:5 quoting Psalm 40:6.

Why not this one. The Masoretic Text is the Hebrew text as preserved, counted and supplied with vowel points by Jewish scribes in the early Middle Ages. It is a Hebrew tradition, not a Greek translation.

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