Out of Context Trivia Quiz

Answer: Song of Songs

Peter and the crowing rooster are from Matthew 26:74-75. Jesus had been arrested and taken to the High Priest's house. Peter followed and waited in the courtyard outside. Some of the other people there claimed that Peter knew Jesus, but Peter denied it.

Matthew is in the New Testament, but Song of Songs is in the Old Testament. The book is a poem - it's a dialogue between a man and woman who were in love.

Answer: Jesus

Matthew 7:7 is part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus taught to the crowds that gathered around him. The full verse reads, 'Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.' The quote is often referred to in relation to prosperity theology: if someone prays for material things like a new car or lots of money, God will give it to them. It's a perfect example of how one sentence can be taken out of context. Earlier in the sermon, in Matthew 6, Jesus says 'Do not store up riches for yourself here on earth' (verse 19) and 'You cannot serve both God and money' (verse 24).

The story about a king locked in a room is from Judges 3:24. The king of Moab was assassinated by an Israelite judge, who secretly stabbed him and locked him in a room.

Answer: Samson

'He' in Judges 15:15 refers to Samson, who killed a thousand people with a donkey's jawbone when he was about to be handed over to the Philistines. 'In this way he will strengthen you, and you will be perfect and holy' is from 1 Thessalonians 3:13. It is almost a complete contrast to Samson's story.

The record of Samson's life is full of violence and revenge, but the message at the end of 1 Thessalonians 3 is about love for all people.

Answer: The Lost Sheep

'Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them,' Jesus says in Luke 15:4. He doesn't say build a bigger tent for them. Instead, he compares the joy of finding one lost sheep to the joy experienced 'over one sinner who repents' (Luke 15:7). Making a larger tent is part of a metaphor in the beginning of Isaiah 54: God's people should prepare for more people to join the family.

The tent-dwellers in the Bible would have had homes made of animal skins.

Answer: Proverbs 8:8

There's a lot of 'Very truly I tell you' and 'I am telling the truth' in the Bible, but that doesn't mean it can be tacked on to the end of any old quote. The book of Proverbs is often associated with King Solomon, but there are also proverbs attributed to 'the wise'. Some scholars think that the text was edited and other writers contributed to it long after Solomon had died.

Individual verses from Proverbs are arguably the only part of the Bible that can be read and fully understood in isolation. They include wise sayings like, 'Plan carefully what you do, and whatever you do will turn out right' (4.26) and 'Wisdom can make your life pleasant and lead you safely through it' (3.17). 'Never say anything that isn't true. Have nothing to do with lies and misleading words' is Proverbs 4:24. Wise words.

Answer: Psalms and Genesis

'Your word is a lamp to' is actually followed by 'guide me and a light for my path'. Psalm 119 doesn't mention anything about hitting people on the hip. In Genesis 32, however, a man wrestled with Jacob during the night. Jacob was winning, so the man hit him on the hip and 'it was thrown out of joint'.

This is the story in which Jacob is given the name 'Israel', and he says, 'I have seen God face-to-face'.

Answer: Go into the boat with your whole family.

In Genesis 7:1, God told Noah to 'Go into the boat with your whole family', giving the following reason: 'I have found that you are the only one in all the world who does what is right.' The snake was told to eat dirt in Genesis 3:14, and Jonah was told to go to Nineveh in Jonah 1:2. Moses was told to take off his sandals in Exodus 3:5 when he saw the burning bush.

Eating a scroll sounds bizarre, but it's an instruction that God gave to Ezekiel. Ezekiel 3:1 says, 'God said, "Mortal man, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel."' In verse 2, Ezekiel opens his mouth and eats it, albeit in a vision. Really eating a scroll would be a little peculiar to say the least - context is everything!

Answer: The ground had opened up and swallowed people who had rejected God.

Jesus was condemning the Pharisees' hypocritical practices in Matthew 23:24. He was criticising the shallow way they followed the Law to the letter, focusing on minute details, but failing to grasp the underlying purpose of their practice. Jesus used hyperbole to highlight his point. Both flies and camels were considered unclean (so neither could be eaten), but while the Pharisees were busy perfecting the small things, they weren't addressing the larger problems.

The people running and shouting lived centuries before Jesus was born. While Moses and the Israelites were wandering around the desert, a group of them complained about their current situation. The ground opened up and swallowed the rebels. The other people who were there started to panic that the same would happen to them.

Answer: She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.

Balaam's donkey started speaking to him in Numbers 22. The donkey didn't offer philosophical thoughts; it actually said, 'What have I done to you? Why have you beaten me these three times?' The two of them had an argument - which the donkey won. The 'wise' saying is from Job 11:12. Job's friend Zophar tried to comfort and answer Job's questions about suffering. 'She was filled with lust ...' is verse 20 in a prophecy God gave to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 23 (Good News Bible wording), when he and other Judeans were living in exile.

The prophecy was a metaphor about two sisters who represented Samaria and Jerusalem.

Answer: Elizabeth

You've probably already guessed the beast's name wasn't John. When they took him to the temple to be circumcised, John was going to be called Zechariah after his father. In Luke 1:60, Elizabeth told them that his name was actually John, as the angel had told Zechariah in Luke 1:13.

The baby grew up to be John the Baptist. The terrifying beast with multiple heads is from Revelation 13, but the Bible doesn't say what his mother called him. He looked like a leopard, so let's called him 'Spot' for now.