For the ear tests words as the tongue tastes food.

• Deuteronomy 6:16

then he looked at wisdom and appraised it; he confirmed it and tested it.

• Job 28:27

For the ear tests words as the tongue tastes food.

• Job 34:3

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

• Matthew 4:7

This quiz is about the word “test.”  It can be found in the NIV 92 times in the forms of test, tests, and tested.  If you included testimony, testify, and other words starting with “T-E-S-T-I…” there would be more than 240 words to choose from.  But never fear, those additional words may be in another quiz.  We will just look at test, tests, and tested, but maybe a testing or two.

The questions are in biblical order.

The Questions:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	The first use of the word “test” in the NIV is when God tested someone on Mount Moriah.  Who and what was the test?
2	The person in charge of the Egyptian grain silos gave a test to the ten brothers to see if they told the truth: if their youngest brother did not return with them, they would be considered spies.  Who was this person demanding the test and who was the youngest brother?
3	After the bitter water of Marah became fit to drink by God showing Moses a stick to throw into the pool, God tested the Israelites.  What was the test and the reward for passing it?
4	Not one of those who saw God’s glory in Egypt would enter the Promised Land because they had tested God ten times, except for two.  Who were they?
5	God told the Israelites that He would use whom to test the people of Israel, near the beginning of Judges?
6	When the Pharisees and Sadducees tested Jesus to provide a sign from heaven, Jesus talked about the red sky in morning and the red sky at night, but then He told them the only sign He would give them.  What?
7	What person will be granted the crown of life when undergoing tests of faith, according to James?
8	What type of ordeal did Peter warn the readers not to be surprised about, as if something strange were happening to you?
9	In a book filled with tests of faith, the author tells the reader to test something to ensure it came from God.  What?
10	In the letter to one of the churches, this church would be spared the testing of the people on earth that was about to come.  What was this church in a city of brotherly love?

Whenever I think of the phrase “This is a test…” I think of where I worked roughly forty years ago, maybe 41 or 42 years ago.  The plant had three siren alarms.  They would test the alarms periodically.  You had different instructions with each alarm, two being shelter alarm and evacuation alarm.  You had to respond to the alarm in an appropriate way, unless…  When the alarm system was being tested, a security person would announce before the alarm tests that the following was only a test.  He or she would repeat each voice command twice, so that everyone understood that it was a test.  Then they would say, “This is a test of the … alarm.  This is a test of the … alarm.”  Then they would test that alarm.

When you are hearing these tests almost every day, it seemed, your mind zoned out during the test.

But then one of the security people came on the intercom with a thick Southern accent, reminiscent of the corniest cornpone hillbilly you ever heard.  Practically all work stopped while this security guy went through the alarm tests.  At the end, he would sing the “all clear” by sliding up the scale an octave, “A-a-a-a-all Clear!”  Everyone was laughing except the managers.  This went on for about two months before the managers started closing in on who the “culprit” was and he was threatened to be fired for making fun of the program.

But the managers, in their lack of a sense of humor, missed what was happening.  We had gotten so used to the boring alarm tests that we never heard them anymore.  But when done just a little differently, we all stopped to pay close attention.

He should have been rewarded instead of threatened with termination.

Bible References:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	The first use of the word “test” in the NIV is when God tested someone on Mount Moriah.  Who and what was the test?	Genesis 22:1
2	The person in charge of the Egyptian grain silos gave a test to the ten brothers to see if they told the truth: if their youngest brother did not return with them, they would be considered spies.  Who was this person demanding the test and who was the youngest brother?	Genesis 42:15-16
3	After the bitter water of Marah became fit to drink by God showing Moses a stick to throw into the pool, God tested the Israelites.  What was the test and the reward for passing it?	Exodus 15:22-27
4	Not one of those who saw God’s glory in Egypt would enter the Promised Land because they had tested God ten times, except for two.  Who were they?	Numbers 14:20-30
5	God told the Israelites that He would use whom to test the people of Israel, near the beginning of Judges?	Judges 2:21-22
6	When the Pharisees and Sadducees tested Jesus to provide a sign from heaven, Jesus talked about the red sky in morning and the red sky at night, but then He told them the only sign He would give them.  What?	Matthew 16:1-4
7	What person will be granted the crown of life when undergoing tests of faith, according to James?	James 1:3-12
8	What type of ordeal did Peter warn the readers not to be surprised about, as if something strange were happening to you?	1 Peter 4:12
9	In a book filled with tests of faith, the author tells the reader to test something to ensure it came from God.  What?	1 John 4:1
10	In the letter to one of the churches, this church would be spared the testing of the people on earth that was about to come.  What was this church in a city of brotherly love?	Revelation 3:10

I had one professor who gave a pop quiz during every class period.  If he did not wish to teach that day, he would give a very hard question that took the entire hour and fifteen minutes to solve.  But then, there were only three of us in this Nuclear Engineering course.

The mid-term exam took the full three hours, and he let us check our work on overtime, turning in our papers after four hours of pulling hair.

But he announced that the last 2-3 class periods were going to be used to start the take-home final exam.  He even suggested that the three of us collaborated to graduate.  Usually collaboration for graduation meant you cheated.  He was encouraging us to “cheat.”  At least he wanted us to pool our resources.

We swore that if we had a professor that suggested that kind of test, 2-3 weeks to turn in the test answers, showing all our work, and being allowed to cheat, we would beg for him to give us a normal test.  There were only four questions.  One was so nasty that we decided we would each spend time trying the other three, and then comparing answers.  But the nasty one meant that I went to the apartment that the other two shared (two Navy officers vying for nuclear powered vessel engineering officer positions).  We started at 6:00am and by midnight we had each solved a third of the answer – to make a graph of what was happening in a nuclear reactor while it was starting up.  Each little dot on the graph took 2 hours or more to solve.  But in eighteen hours we pooled our answers.  We each took the data from the other two and generated the graph on our own the next day.

The professor was my favorite among many loved professors at the university, but we told him if we knew what the test would entail, we would have begged for an easier one.

The professor’s reply was to the two Navy guys.  He said, “When you walk into Admiral Rickover’s office, since he always interviews each candidate, show him a copy of the test.  Welcome to the world of nuclear propulsion, gentleman.”  My professor simply winked at me, since I was about to be commissioned as an Army officer, and the course only meant that when I took a graduate level course in Nuclear Engineering a year later at a different college, I hardly cracked the book.  It was simply a review of the first couple of months of material from the original course.

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The Answers:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	The first use of the word “test” in the NIV is when God tested someone on Mount Moriah.  Who and what was the test?	Genesis 22:1	God tested Abraham in testing his faith by offering Isaac, his only son, as a sacrifice.  Only to have God provide a ram instead.
2	The person in charge of the Egyptian grain silos gave a test to the ten brothers to see if they told the truth: if their youngest brother did not return with them, they would be considered spies.  Who was this person demanding the test and who was the youngest brother?	Genesis 42:15-16	Joseph tested his brothers because he wanted to see his brother Benjamin.
3	After the bitter water of Marah became fit to drink by God showing Moses a stick to throw into the pool, God tested the Israelites.  What was the test and the reward for passing it?	Exodus 15:22-27	If they obeyed every one of God’s commands, they would never get sick.  God was the Great Healer.  Note: They did not pass the test.
4	Not one of those who saw God’s glory in Egypt would enter the Promised Land because they had tested God ten times, except for two.  Who were they?	Numbers 14:20-30	Caleb and Joshua
5	God told the Israelites that He would use whom to test the people of Israel, near the beginning of Judges?	Judges 2:21-22	The nations that Joshua had not driven from the land when he died.
6	When the Pharisees and Sadducees tested Jesus to provide a sign from heaven, Jesus talked about the red sky in morning and the red sky at night, but then He told them the only sign He would give them.  What?	Matthew 16:1-4	The sign of Jonah
7	What type of person will be granted the crown of life when undergoing tests of faith, according to James?	James 1:3-12	The one who perseveres.
8	What type of ordeal did Peter warn the readers not to be surprised about, as if something strange were happening to you?	1 Peter 4:12	A fiery ordeal
9	In a book filled with tests of faith, the author tells the reader to test something to ensure it came from God.  What?	1 John 4:1	Test to see if spirits are from God.
10	In the letter to one of the churches, this church would be spared the testing of the people on earth that was about to come.  What was this church in a city of brotherly love?	Revelation 3:10	Philadelphia

Whether you did well on this quiz or, ummm, not so well, for the first video.  Here is Chris Tomlin singing Whom Shall I Fear (The God of Angel Armies). 

And here is Keith and Kristyn Getty singing When Trials Come.

And here is The Happy Goodmans singing We’ll Soon Be Done with Troubles and Trials.  They jazz it up a bit for the Gaither Homecoming Crowd.

And here is the Redeemed Quartet singing What a Friend We Have in Jesus.  I haven’t visited these young men from Indiana for a while.

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.