“This is what the Lord says—
    Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
    apart from me there is no God.

• Isaiah 44:6

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

• Mark 9:35

This quiz is full of superlatives: the first, the last, the most, the least, etc.  Stuff like that.

The two Scriptures above are interesting with regard to superlatives.  The first is from Isaiah and it basically says what Jesus said in one the His I AM statements.  “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6).”  Jesus was just clarifying what Isaiah had written.  And Jesus’ statement of the first being last turns this whole superlative thing on its ear.  Does that mean that the Cub Scout motto, “Do Your Best” is improper teaching?  No, but bragging about having more arrowheads might not be the right way to go.  At one Scouting meeting, I eavesdropped on the boys comparing how many achievements (ten achievements equaling an arrowhead sown on the uniform beneath the corresponding badge on their uniform pocket.  One said that he had five arrowheads, another eight.  Each showed his arrowheads to prove it.  Then our older son and one of his friends walked into the conversation.  One of the younger boys said that he had as many arrowheads as either of the older boys.  At that point, my son and his friend pulled their shirttails out to show that half their arrowheads were beneath the beltline.  They never said a word.  The younger boys said, nearly in unison, “Oh” and they walked away, knowing that they had a lot more work to do.  I walked out where they could see me and told the two older boys that they needed to set a good example by keeping their shirttails tucked in.  The whole time, I was biting my tongue to keep from laughing.  The photo above is our older son’s uniform shirt.  His younger brother got more badges, but as a younger brother, he had been tagging along for three years by that point.

The original quiz comes from The Big Book of Bible Games and Puzzles by Joy MacKenzie and Shirley Bledsoe.  The answers are listed below the eighteen questions.  Some of these questions, or answers, are not much of a challenge due to the nature of the question, but it should be fun.  For those who want a harder challenge, answer the questions without looking at the matching choices below, but then some of the questions might have multiple answers in that case.  There were a couple of edits of the questions due to slight inaccuracy or clarification.

The Questions:

	Superlative
1	First Man
2	Oldest Man
3	The Book with the Fewest Number of Verses
4	Probably the strongest man in the Bible, not counting Jesus
5	Probably the tallest man in the Bible (over 9 ft.)
6	One of the shortest men in the Bible.
7	Wrote the most books in the Bible (13 or 14).
8	Israel’s First King
9	Jesus’ First Miracle
10	First Gentile to Become a Christian
11	Man who wrote the most songs in the Bible
12	First book in the Bible
13	First murderer
14	The last book in the Bible
15	One of Judah’s / Israel’s meanest kings
16	One of Israel’s kindest kings
17	The world’s bestselling book
18	One of the Bible’s wickedest grandmothers

Genesis	Methuselah	Water to Wine	2 John
Solomon	Cain	King Saul	Samson
Manasseh	King David	Paul	Revelation
Adam	Cornelius	Zacchaeus	Goliath
.	Bible	Athaliah	.

Bible References:

1. Genesis 2
2. Genesis 5:25
3. N/A
4. Judges 13-16
5. 1 Samuel 17
6. Luke 19:1-10
7. N/A
8. 1 Samuel 9
9. John 2:1-12
10. Acts 10 – although there may be conversions among Gentiles who followed Jesus
11. N/A, but you might want to thumb through Psalms…
12. N/A
13. Genesis 4:8
14. N/A
15. 1 Kings 21:1-18, but there were a lot of bad kings.  This one repented at one point.  None of the kings of the northern tribes were good, some possibly meaner than this king.
16. 1 Kings 2:7.  This is obscure, where the king’s father tells him to be kind, but if I said “wise”, it would be a giveaway.
17. N/A
18. 2 Kings 11

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The Answers:

1. Adam
2. Methuselah
3. 2 John
4. Samson
5. Goliath
6. Zacchaeus
7. Paul
8. King Saul
9. Water to wine
10. Cornelius
11. King David
12. Genesis
13. Cain
14. Revelation
15. Manasseh
16. Solomon
17. Bible
18. Athaliah

Since you did so well, we need a video that talks about superlatives, as in Tim Hawkins’ That’s the Worst.  He performs the least PC act using the worst Chilean accent, but then, maybe it is not the WORST!!

Of course, if you did not do well on this quiz, I hope that you are not left with gloom, despair, and agony.  You might do better next week.  But if Gloom, Despair, and Agony are your “thing,” here are the best of 1974.  Some don’t even sync the lips, and sometimes not even the lips of the one talking…

But before we can leave the subject of superlatives, there is only One who really is any superlative.  We can always improve, for we are still “under construction.”  There is one who is truly “Great,” and many have recorded this hymn.  Home Free did a great job, and the mountain scenery is beautiful.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.