Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.  The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.  (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)  The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.  The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

• Genesis 2:8-17

This is a quiz similar to some that I have written recently.  In this case, two words, “good” and “evil,” must be in the same verse in the Bible (NIV).  The first two instances is in the Scripture above, Genesis 2:9 and 2:17.  The next two verses are in Genesis 3 discussing the fall of Mankind.

Many cultures, and many within the church, have a belief in some sort of spiritual dualism, equal powers battling for our soul.  There is an old Native American story about having two wolves, a good wolf and a bad wolf, inside each of us and the one that wins is the one that we feed.  I have even heard pastors use this story as an illustration for a sermon.  Yet, God made everything good.  Adam was given choice, to not eat of one tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Adam and Eve messed up.  Satan roams the earth tempting us, but God has the power.  Satan can only tempt.  When we accept Jesus as our Savior, God washes away our sin so that He no longer sees it, but we will never be made completely perfect until we go to be with Jesus.

The point is that there are not two equal forces battling for our soul.  We are born with a sin nature, and God offers Grace.

Yet, there are 55 instances of the words “good” and “evil” are in the same verse, 33 times in the Old Testament and 22 times in the New Testament.  I just picked a few of them.

The Questions:

	Question
1	There is only one other reference other than the ones mentioned above to good and evil in Genesis.  An Egyptian official says, “Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil? Isn’t this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination? This is a wicked thing you have done.’”  But is it not strange when you consider who put the cup into the sack?  You put the cup in the sack, and whose sack was the cup placed?
2	The Israelites rebelled against God when the spies said that there were giants in the Promised Land.  God said, “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except …”  Who are the two who were allowed to enter the Promised Land, and in the telling of the two exceptions, who was told that he could not enter?  HINT:  Oddly, this use of “good” and “evil” was not in the original story, but in the retelling of the story.
3	When Joshua gives his farewell speech to his leaders, he states that God’s good promises will be fulfilled and the bad promises.  Although he follows this statement with the condition for the punishment (bad things), he made the first statement as a declarative, not a if, then.  What were the conditions to cause God’s anger to burn and what bad things was Joshua talking about?
4	In a stretch of five psalms, four of them have a verse with ”good” and “evil.”  Two admonish us to do good and avoid evil. The other two lament about receiving evil for having done good.  When told to do good and avoid evil, something else is added.  One adds something else to do.  The other adds a promise.  Can you name either the extra thing to do or the promise?
5	Regarding the concept of the two psalms where evil was repaid for good, what does Proverbs say about the one who does that?
6	Isaiah declares woe on anyone who calls evil good and good evil.  I can think of a couple of things in the world today that are rather popular examples.  Maybe I should change “broken world” to “woeful world” …  But in that same verse, Isaiah gives two metaphors meaning the same thing.  Can you name either one?  Bonus if you get both, because one is common.
7	Jeremiah laments that his people only know how to do evil and good is something they do not know how to do.  Then nine chapters later, he again brings up good and evil, and how it is so foreign for them to do good.  It is like what people to change their skin and what animal to change its spots?
8	In consecutive verses, Amos tells the people that we should seek good, not evil (or hate evil and love good).  The first promise is that we might live.  What else should these people (and us) do and who was Amos talking to, according to this second of the verses?
9	When Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount, He mentions good and evil twice.  First regarding loving one’s enemies, but near the end He mentions good and evil when He discusses “Ask, Seek, Knock.”  In this second mention of good and evil, what is good and what is evil?
10	In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul laments about good and evil, with two verses in that chapter where the two words appear in the same verse.  Can you give the gist of either of these two laments?
11	The author of Hebrews talks of his audience needing milk instead of solid food.  What does the author say is a benefit in becoming spiritually mature (eating solid food)?
12	What does the Apostle Peter say you need to keep from evil in order to see good days?

As mentioned above, there are 55 verses in the NIV that contain the words “good” and “evil.”  I could do another quiz with the ones I skipped.

But the best way to avoid the evil that many writers in the Bible tell us to do is to keep our eyes on Jesus.

Bible References:

1. Genesis 44:1-4
2. Deuteronomy 1:34-38
3. Joshua 23:15-16
4. Psalm 34 – 38 is the ‘stretch.’  Psalm 34:14 and Psalm 37:27 for the answers.
5. Proverbs 17:13
6. Isaiah 5:20
7. The first lament is Jeremiah 9:22, and the second, with the answers, is Jeremiah 13:23.
8. Amos 5:14-15
9. Matthew 7:7-12
10. Romans 7:19, 21
11. Hebrews 5:11-14
12. 1 Peter 3:10

I hope you enjoyed this quiz. In usual fashion, the answers will appear below the white, red, and black bars.

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The Answers:

1. Joseph’s steward put the silver cup in Benjamin’s sack at the request of Joseph, along with the money he had offered to buy grain.  So, as the steward went off to capture these “thieves,” he knew that he, himself, was the “thief.”
2. Caleb is mentioned first for he was one of two spies to give a positive report.  Moses mentions that he will not be going because of his sin, stating “God had become angry.”  And then Joshua will see the Promised Land and lead the army.
3. Joshua says that they will be destroyed in the good land God had promised.  Punishment for worshipping other gods.
4. Psalm 34 says that we should seek peace and pursue it.  Psalm 37 says that we will live in the land forever, which might come from seeking peace and pursuing it.  Yet, contrast this to what Joshua prophesied about being destroyed due to worshipping idols in the last question.  Thus, we should seek peace without compromising our standards.
5. Evil will never leave the house of the one who repays evil for good, and Proverbs 14:22 says that those who do evil go astray while those who do good find love and faithfulness.
6. The common metaphor is Light and Dark as a substitute for good and evil.  The other is Sweet and Bitter.  I don’t know about you, but on rare occasions, maybe while a little sick, but with sinus issues most of the time…  I have thought something sweet to be bitter, but the other way around?!?!
7. Doing good and avoiding evil is so foreign to the people that it might be easier for an Ethiopian to change his skin and a leopard to change his spots.
8. Amos says to the descendants of Joseph that they should also maintain justice in the courts.  Note that the largest of the northern tribes is Ephraim, one of the sons of Joseph, the other being Manasseh.  Thus, Joseph was used to mean Israel (excluding Judah to the south).  It is also odd that Amos was not a “professional” prophet and not from the northern tribes.  He was a shepherd and fig tree tender from Tekoa, a town near Bethlehem in Judah.  Could it be Amos’ descendants that were visited by the angels when Jesus was born?
9. We, the humans with a sin nature are evil, but we know how to give our children good gifts.
10. “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Or “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” I quoted the two verses, but the question said the gist.
11. Eating solid food, you can distinguish good from evil.
12. To see good days, you must keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech.

Since you did so well or even if you did not do too well, the following is an interesting Danish video.  If you are disturbed by a mannequin in a hangman’s noose, dangling from the rafters (I think they were doing an entire concert of movie themes for American westerns, or Clint Eastwood movies, or spaghetti westerns???), you might skip the video, but this is the Danish National Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the theme music for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The woman that did the “wa-wa” was a natural. I wonder if she was a “wa-wa-baby?”

And thinking about hanging someone, there was a hanging scene in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly that had an interesting outcome. If you saw the movie, do you remember what happened? – Not part of the quiz…

Although I love the Gaither Vocal Band as it is comprised these days, but my favorite just might be David Phelps, Guy Penrod, Mark Lowry, and Bill Gaither.  Here, they remind us that God is Good, All the Time.

If you like these Saturday morning Bible quizzes, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Saturday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.