Bible Trivia Questions about Jesus

Medium Bible Numbers & Statistics

According to Luke 3, about how old was Jesus when he began his ministry?

1. AAbout thirtyCorrect
2. BAbout twenty-five
3. CAbout thirty-three
4. DAbout forty

Answer: About thirty

Luke 3:23 · ESV

Luke says Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work, and places the note between the baptism and the genealogy. Thirty carries weight in Israel's history: it is the age at which Levites entered full temple service, the age at which Joseph stood before Pharaoh, and the age at which David became king.

Luke 3:23 states the age; Numbers 4:3 sets the Levitical age, and 2 Samuel 5:4 gives David's.

Why not this one. Thirty-three is a common estimate of his age at the crucifixion, worked out from the length of the ministry, not the figure Luke gives at its beginning.

Medium Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message

BF&M2000 Article II(B) teaches that the ascended Christ is now exalted at the right hand of God. What title does the article use to describe His present mediatorial role?

1. AThe One MediatorCorrect
2. BThe High Priest of the Levitical order
3. CThe Governor of earthly kingdoms
4. DThe visible Head of the institutional church

Answer: The One Mediator

BF&M 2000, Article II(B) · ESV

The title is drawn from 1 Timothy 2:5, one God and one mediator between God and men. Calling Christ the one Mediator is a positive claim about his sufficiency and, by implication, a denial that anyone else stands in that place. He is described as now advocating for his people as the ever living Lord.

BF&M 2000, Article II.B; 1 Timothy 2:5.

Why not this one. Christ is genuinely our high priest, which is the whole argument of Hebrews, so this is close. But Hebrews is at pains to say he is not of the Levitical order at all; he is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, precisely because the Levitical priesthood could not finish its work.

Easy Doctrine — Christ

According to Luke 24:39, after his resurrection Jesus showed his disciples his hands and feet and said 'a spirit does not have' what?

1. AFlesh and bones as you see that I haveCorrect
2. BA body that can be touched or seen
3. CWounds from the cross
4. DThe ability to eat and drink

Answer: Flesh and bones as you see that I have

Luke 24:39 · ESV

The disciples thought they were seeing a spirit, and Jesus answered the fear with evidence. He showed them the hands and feet that had been nailed, invited them to touch him, and then asked for something to eat and ate a piece of broiled fish in front of them. The resurrection body is transformed and glorified, but it is the same body, continuous with the one laid in the tomb.

Luke 24:36-43; John 20:27

Why not this one. This paraphrases the sense of the moment and is close enough to feel right, since he does invite them to touch him. The words he uses are more concrete than that, naming flesh and bones, which is about as physical a claim as the language allows.

Easy Doctrine — Church & Ordinances

Who instituted the Lord's Supper, and on what occasion?

1. AJesus, on the night he was betrayedCorrect
2. BPeter, on the day of Pentecost
3. CPaul, in the church at Corinth
4. DMoses, at the first Passover

Answer: Jesus, on the night he was betrayed

1 Corinthians 11:23 · ESV

Paul delivered to the Corinthians what he received from the Lord: that on the night he was betrayed Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and called his disciples to do this in remembrance of him. The Supper therefore rests on Christ's own institution, not on later church practice.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26, matching the accounts in Matthew 26:26-29 and Luke 22:19-20.

Why not this one. Paul transmitted the ordinance and corrected its abuse at Corinth, but he says plainly that he received it from the Lord rather than devising it.

Easy Doctrine — God & the Trinity

After Jesus said that he and the Father are one, how did his hearers in John 10 respond?

1. AThey picked up stones to stone himCorrect
2. BThey fell down and worshiped him
3. CThey asked him for a sign from heaven
4. DThey went away in silence

Answer: They picked up stones to stone him

John 10:30-31 · ESV

The reaction tells us how the claim was heard. They reached for stones and said plainly that they were charging him with blasphemy, because a man was making himself God. Jesus does not correct the reading of his words; the claim to unity with the Father was understood as a claim to deity.

John 10:30-33, in the temple at the Feast of Dedication.

Why not this one. A demand for a sign is a real response elsewhere in the Gospels, but here the reaction to his words was immediate violence.

Hard Doctrine — Grace & Election

What does the governmental theory of the atonement, set out by Hugo Grotius and later taken up in much Arminian theology, hold?

1. AChrist's death publicly displayed God's displeasure at sin, letting him forgive without exacting the full penaltyCorrect
2. BChrist's death paid a ransom to Satan in order to release from him the captives he held in bondage
3. CChrist's death moves sinners to repentance simply by setting before them the example of divine love
4. DChrist's death bore in full the exact penalty due to all those whom he came to represent

Answer: Christ's death publicly displayed God's displeasure at sin, letting him forgive without exacting the full penalty

On the governmental view God relaxes the strict demand of the law as a wise ruler may, and the cross upholds the moral order of his government rather than paying the exact debt owed by particular sinners.

Hugo Grotius, 'Defensio fidei catholicae de satisfactione Christi' (1617), written against Socinus, who had denied that the cross satisfied anything at all.

Why not this one. That is penal substitution, the view the governmental theory was framed to replace. Grotius specifically denied that the full penalty was exacted at the cross.

Medium Doctrine — Last Things

According to 2 Thessalonians 2:8, by what will the Lord Jesus kill the lawless one?

1. AThe breath of his mouthCorrect
2. BThe sword of an archangel
3. CFire sent down from the altar
4. DThe chains of the abyss

Answer: The breath of his mouth

2 Thessalonians 2:8 · ESV

The lawless one, for all his display of power, is undone by a breath and brought to nothing by the appearing of Christ's coming. Paul's point is the sheer disproportion: no struggle is required of the returning Lord.

2 Thessalonians 2:8, echoing the language of Isaiah 11:4, where the shoot from Jesse strikes the earth with the rod of his mouth.

Why not this one. Revelation does describe the dragon bound and shut in the abyss, but Paul is not speaking of binding here. He says the lawless one is killed and abolished by Christ's own breath and appearing.

Hard Doctrine — Man & Sin

The teaching that every descendant of Adam is conceived in sin has one exception. Who, and on what ground?

1. AJesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born without sinCorrect
2. BMary, preserved free from original sin at her own conception
3. CJohn the Baptist, filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb
4. DEnoch, who walked with God and did not see death

Answer: Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born without sin

Luke 1:35 · ESV

Christ took a true human nature from Mary yet without sin, because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and is not a son of Adam by ordinary generation. Only a sinless substitute could bear the sins of others rather than his own.

Luke 1:35, with Hebrews 4:15 and 2 Corinthians 5:21 on his sinlessness.

Why not this one. The immaculate conception was defined by Rome in 1854 and has no scriptural warrant. Mary calls God her Savior in Luke 1:47, which is not how the sinless speak.

Easy Doctrine — Salvation

In Acts 4:12, Peter declares there is salvation in no one else. What does he say there is no other of, under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved?

1. ANameCorrect
2. BLaw
3. CTemple
4. DThrone

Answer: Name

Acts 4:12 · ESV

Peter is on trial before the council for healing a lame man, and he makes the exclusivity of Christ his defense. Salvation is located in a person named, not in a system, a place, or a rite. The word must is as strong here as the words no other: there is one appointed way to be saved and no second.

Acts 4:8-12, Peter's answer to the rulers and elders of Jerusalem after the healing at the temple gate.

Why not this one. Paul is emphatic that the law justifies no one, so it was never a candidate for saving; Peter's point here is the singular name of Jesus.

Easy Doctrine — The Holy Spirit

According to 1 John 4:2, what confession shows that a spirit is from God?

1. AThat Jesus Christ has come in the fleshCorrect
2. BThat Christ only appeared to have a body
3. CThat God is one and has no Son
4. DThat the Spirit is greater than the Son

Answer: That Jesus Christ has come in the flesh

1 John 4:2 · ESV

John gives a doctrinal test for spiritual claims. Any spirit or teacher may be measured by what he says about the incarnation, which means the Spirit's presence is verified by a right confession of Christ rather than by the intensity of an experience. Doctrine, not sensation, is the measure John gives the church.

1 John 4:1–3, written against teachers who denied Christ's true humanity and had already left the congregation.

Why not this one. This is docetism, precisely the error John identifies as the mark of the spirit of antichrist rather than the Spirit of God.

Medium Doctrine — The Scriptures

According to Hebrews 1:1–2, God spoke long ago to the fathers by the prophets. By whom has he spoken in these last days?

1. ABy his SonCorrect
2. BBy the apostles
3. CBy angels
4. DBy dreams and visions

Answer: By his Son

Hebrews 1:1–2 · ESV

God's revelation came in many parts and many ways across the old covenant, and it reaches its climax in the Son. Later revelation does not correct earlier revelation; it completes it, and Christ is the final word.

Hebrews 1:1–2, which opens the letter by contrasting the many prophets of former days with the Son through whom God made the world.

Why not this one. The writer argues the reverse in the verses that follow, showing the Son to be far superior to angels, who served only as messengers when the law was delivered at Sinai.

Medium Famous Verses — Fill in the Blank (ESV)

“Jesus wept.” — Which book, chapter, and verse is this?

1. AJohn 11:35Correct
2. BJohn 11:33
3. CLuke 19:41
4. DJohn 11:38

Answer: John 11:35

John 11:35 · ESV

Jesus stays away deliberately and arrives at Bethany four days after the burial, meets Martha and then Mary, and weeps at the tomb of a friend he is about to raise. Verse 33 records that he was deeply moved and troubled, verse 38 that he was moved again at the tomb; the tears fall between those two notes. It is the shortest verse in most English Bibles, though not in the Greek.

John 11:1-44.

Why not this one. Jesus does weep a second time in the Gospels, over Jerusalem on the descent from the Mount of Olives, so this is a real memory rather than an invented one. The Greek there describes a loud lament, not the quiet shedding of tears John records.