Then you replied, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, as the Lord our God commanded us.” So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

• Deuteronomy 1:41

Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”

• 2 Kings 5:20

Captives also enjoy their ease; they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout.

• Job 3:18

then let briers come up instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.

• Job 31:40

Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will stink; the mountains will be soaked with their blood.

• Isaiah 34:3

Not everyone reads my short stories, but a new one appears in the morning on most Wednesdays.  These stories have spawned other methods of presenting Bible studies.  Two of the fictional characters have very recently grown out of their teen years.  They are now married: Easter and Jemima Yeggs.  They are in college, each pursuing a meteorological degree, but Easter is working on a second major of mechanical engineering while Jemima is working on a second major of photography.  Although Easter always wanted to study the weather, their love of storm chasing cemented both their relationship together and their career goals.  They joined a storm chasing team, nicknamed the Turtle team, and the professor gave them the code names of Stinker for Jemima and Easy for Easter.  Jemima, a.k.a. Stinker, is expecting after the first of the year, and she is not chasing storms for a while.

This got me to thinking about their code names as they relate to the Bible.  Neither Stinker nor Easter appears in the Bible.  Yes, the story of the passion of the Christ and the resurrection from the dead is covered, but the name “Easter” is not applied to that remembrance of the events for centuries after the Bible was completed.  But the word “stink” appears five times and so does “easy”.  “Ease” appears ten times.

This quiz will be about verses containing the words “stink”, “easy”, or “ease”.

Two or three of these may be tough ones, even for the “Bible scholars” out there.

The questions are in biblical order.  And eight of the questions are from the Old Testament.

The Questions:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	For the first plague of Egypt, what will stink?
2	If you gathered too much of this food and saved some for tomorrow, it would rot, but the Israelites were instructed to gather a double portion on the day before the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath what food would not stink and not have maggots in it?
3	Who spoke to Ruth after she gleaned in his field, making Ruth feel at ease?
4	Elisha said that bringing pools of water without rain or wind was easy for God, but God would also deliver what nation into their hands?
5	In the first chapter of Proverbs, it states whoever listens will be at ease.  Listen to whom?
6	According to Isaiah, whose canals will stink, and the streams dwindle and dry up?
7	Jeremiah laments that the wicked prosper and who is at ease?
8	What did God have grow up to give ease to Jonah?
9	Jesus’ burden is light but what is easy?
10	In a parable of Jesus, who builds bigger barns to store his abundant crop so that he can take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry?

This is the origin of the code name Stinker.

In memory of C.S. Lewis who claimed to be the most reluctant of converts to Christianity, Dr. Elvira Quinn (Casey) code named Jemima “Stinker.”  She thought her life of loose morals and debauchery was fun.  She was a consenting adult, and no one seemed to be harmed by her lifestyle.

Note: Just as C.S. Lewis made the claim, others might also name it, just like the Apostle Paul being the chief of all sinners.  I could resemble either of these descriptors.

But then Jemima invited her to have some “girl talks.”  After all, they were stranded in a blizzard at that moment.  In the first girl talk, Jemima asked her professor if she really got any lasting purpose in life from her lifestyle.  The question was an innocent one on Jemima’s part, but her professor was suddenly convicted of her sins by the Holy Spirit.  Dr. Quinn, now married to Ben Casey, cut off all illicit affairs until she could answer that question.

Dr. Quinn had enjoyed her lifestyle, but she admitted that the lifestyle had gotten her into hot water on occasion and she got no lasting satisfaction from it.  As Jemima kept innocently talking about her life as a preacher’s kid and having those moments when she acted out of character just to loosen the cobwebs, Dr. Quinn wanted that lifestyle instead of her own.  She accepted Jesus into her life, but since she had been reluctant and she would have never considered it without Jemima seemingly having everything together and loving life, Jemima became the “Stinker” who turned Dr. Quinn’s lascivious lifestyle on its ear.

Note: As Jemima works with teenagers and other children, she prefers “Aunt Jemima” since “Stinker” seems disrespectful.  But she will answer to anything, just don’t call her late to supper.

This is a fictional tale, but we never know who is watching and what decision that we might make as a Christian that gets the attention of someone else.

Bible References:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	For the first plague of Egypt, what will stink?	Exodus 7:18
2	If you gathered too much of this food and saved some for tomorrow, it would rot, but the Israelites were instructed to gather a double portion on the day before the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath what food would not stink and not have maggots in it?	Exodus 16:24
3	Who spoke to Ruth after she gleaned in his field, making Ruth feel at ease?	Ruth 2:13
4	Elisha said that bringing pools of water without rain or wind was easy for God, but God would also deliver what nation into their hands?	2 Kings 3:18
5	In the first chapter of Proverbs, it states whoever listens will be at ease.  Listen to whom?	Proverbs 1:33
6	According to Isaiah, whose canals will stink, and the streams dwindle and dry up?	Isaiah 19:6
7	Jeremiah laments that the wicked prosper and who is at ease?	Jeremiah 12:1
8	What did God have grow up to give ease to Jonah?	Jonah 4:6
9	Jesus’ burden is light but what is easy?	Matthew 11:30
10	In a parable of Jesus, who builds bigger barns to store his abundant crop so that he can take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry?	Luke 12:19

This is the origin of the code name Easy.

Naomi Yeggs, Easter’s mother, had declared that the crazy names in the Yeggs family had come to an end.  Her husband is Deviled Yeggs.  Her brother-in-law is Scrambled Yeggs, who had two sons, Rotten Yeggs and Poached Yeggs.  Her father-in-law is Thousand-Year-Old Yeggs and his father is Millennium Yeggs.  Enough was Enough!!

Easter Yeggs was born on Easter Sunday.  She could not resist, and Easter Yeggs has not had a birthday on Easter ever since.  But due to his calm demeanor and soft-spoken personality, Ease or Easy became his nickname.

When Dr. Quinn started calling him Easy, everyone thought a shortened version of Easter was all that his code name meant, but on a storm chase when a new teammate, Amazon (Joseline Johnson) saved a woman’s life, Dr. Quinn sat with Mary Sheltie (the other two of the original team) in the ER in a New Orleans hospital while Amazon answered questions from the media.  Dr. Quinn and Mary flirted with Easy and he ran to the Turtle vehicle to get away from the two ladies that were just having fun.

That is when Dr. Quinn told Mary that Easter Yeggs was the one conquest that always seemed to slip through her fingers.  Of course, by this time, she was engaged to Ben Casey and the flirting was all in jest, but it had not been before she became a Christian.  In her sarcasm, instead of calling him difficult to conquer, his code name became Easy.

This is a fictional tale, but we never know who is watching and what decision that we might make as a Christian that gets the attention of someone else.

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The Answers:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	For the first plague of Egypt, what will stink?	Exodus 7:18	The river Nile when the water turns to blood.
2	If you gathered too much of this food and saved some for tomorrow, it would rot, but the Israelites were instructed to gather a double portion on the day before the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath what food would not stink and not have maggots in it?	Exodus 16:24	Manna, teaching the Israelites the importance of keeping the Sabbath holy.
3	Who spoke to Ruth after she gleaned in his field, making Ruth feel at ease?	Ruth 2:13	Boaz
4	Elisha said that bringing pools of water without rain or wind was easy for God, but God would also deliver what nation into their hands?	2 Kings 3:18	Moab
5	In the first chapter of Proverbs, it states whoever listens will be at ease.  Listen to whom?	Proverbs 1:33	Literally Wisdom, but in reference to God
6	According to Isaiah, whose canals will stink, and the streams dwindle and dry up?	Isaiah 19:6	Egypt
7	Jeremiah laments that the wicked prosper and who is at ease?	Jeremiah 12:1	The faithless.
8	What did God have grow up to give ease to Jonah?	Jonah 4:6	A leafy plant
9	Jesus’ burden is light but what is easy?	Matthew 11:30	His yoke
10	In a parable of Jesus, who builds bigger barns to store his abundant crop so that he can take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry?	Luke 12:19	The rich fool, for his life would be taken that night.  The lesson being that we must not store up for ourselves and fail to be rich toward God.

Whether you did well on this quiz or, ummm, not so well, for the first video, here is Maranatha! Music singing Here I am to Worship.  Thinking about “Easy,” life is not easy.  The Christian life is not easy, but without God within us, it is impossible.  Let’s look at the basics.

Here is Keith and Kristyn Getty with Matt Papa singing Christ Our Hope in Life and Death.

I have used several different recordings, but here is a new one for me, The Petersens singing Amazing Grace.

On the day I wrote this quiz, our pastor said something that I captured in my notes, and I thought it fitting here when talking about “easy.”  We do not need to clean up our act before going to God to become His child.  In fact, we cannot do so without Him within us.  So, the pastor said something like this (since my notes are rarely exactly the same), “You come to Jesus Christ as a sinner. God loves you so much, He will not let you stay the way you are.”  Some of those changes that God works within us are so easy, that we feel the relief that those sins are now gone.  Other things are a little harder to discover and deal with, but in the end, our sanctification will be complete, and we will be like Jesus when we emerge in the next life, cleansed of all sins from this life.

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.