How well do you know the Bible?

Sunday afternoon and it was hot.  Got online.That was an AARP online quiz I decided to take.”How well do you know the Bible?”   American Association of Radical Progressives.  Or since most people around her just join for the AARP for their discounts, maybe I should say, American Association of the Really Parsimonious.  First question was what did Thomas Jefferson do that labeled him an infidel? Infidel!  Has the author of this quiz been hanging around a mullah? Among multiple choices, the closest one was “re-wrote the Bible”.  Correct!--the quiz awarded me. Well actually, TJ didn’t re-write the Bible.  He was the founder of the Virginia Bible Society which had as a goal the sharing of the gospel with the Indians.  But since Bibles were expensive, Jefferson struck upon the notion that he would publish a slimline compilation of Jesus’ quotes from the gospels.  Like if you had a red-letter bible and only copied the red.  Jesus’ quotes could be an assist for others to share the gospel message.  And if a semi-literate Native would order his new Christian life around Jesus’ words, he would have a good start.  Few in Jefferson’s day thought this offensive, but some modernist historians, wishing to discount Christianity, have labeled him a dieist.

Second question was to name the book which removed Jesus’ divinity from the Bible’s story.  4 multiple guesses were available, none of which I’ve read or will ever desire to read (modern books—not in the Bible).  I kept looking for “Quran”, but it wasn’t one of the possible answers.  Have they given this quiz to a literary genius like St. Augustine? No? It turns out the answer was “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”. Third question was what percentage of Christians say they attend church almost weekly—43%.  I wonder if any of them are AARP members since this was supposed to be a quiz about how well you know the Bible, not pop religion.  Argus Hamilton often says that Hollywood would love to do another movie based on a scriptural story.  You don’t have to pay a scriptwriter one cent.  Trouble is, they can’t find a Bible anywhere in Hollywood.

Perhaps I can send in a question or two to substitute, so that their quiz really will check your biblical knowledge and give the progressives an education to boot.  Hot issue: gay marriage.  Does Jesus ever say that marriage is to be just one man and one woman?  Where?  The answer is Matthew 19:4ff, and it gets quoted at most weddings “Have you not read that He Who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one.”  Therefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (They still have weddings here in flyover country.)

Question 2 hot button issue: abortion.  We humans can’t seem to determine when life begins and can’t agree on the value of a fetus—though Planned Nonparenthood does take a stab at value. Does the Bible say God values an unborn baby and where? Answer: Jeremiah 1:5 (Contrary to popular belief, Jeremiah was not a bullfrog)  God told the prophet, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.”

Q3.  Does the Bible say anywhere that the government can compromise our beliefs or restrict our witness? Where?  In Acts 4 Peter was on trial with the governing authorities and he addresses them, “Rulers of the people and elders…” They then demanded that Pete “[publicly] speak no more in His (Jesus) name.” Peter replies, ‘for we cannot but speak what we have seen and heard.”  Again in Acts 5:29 he and the apostles tell the authorities, “we ought to obey God rather than man.” 

There you go.  American Association of Religious People.