I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, and that your heart is overflowing with gratitude for all God’s abundant blessings! Now that we’re all sitting around munching leftovers and perhaps taking a day off, I thought that it might be time for a bit of fun.

A little over a year ago I posted a little quiz asking, “How well do you know your Bible?” Since then I’ve continued to collect interesting quotes, and it’s time for Bible Quiz, Part 2. I admit, this one is a bit harder than the last quiz. Still, I have the utmost confidence in the Biblical expertise of my readers.

As with my last quiz, the answers are at the end, but no peeking until you’ve finished the test.

True or False? According to the Bible…

1. “Everything happens for a reason.”
2. God gave the Israelites (via Moses) ten commandments.
3. There are seven deadly sins
4. In heaven we can see angels wearing robes, with gold sashes around their chests, sitting on clouds, and playing harps.
5. Laughter is the best medicine.
6. We must be “born again.”
7. We must “ask Jesus into our heart.”
8. “Knowledge talks, wisdom listens.”
9. We should “eat, drink, and be merry.”
10. All good things must come to an end.

Answers:

1. Not in the Bible. The origins of this phrase are unknown. Marilyn Monroe is often given as the author, as she included it in a statement she made:

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you learn to appreciate them when they’re right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself…and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” Actually, this is pretty poor advice.

2. Yes, see Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

3. According to tradition, the “seven deadly sins” are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. (Thankfully, none of these sins are so horrible that God can’t forgive us if we ask Him to.) There is no single list in the Bible that contains these particular sins, and of course it’s easy to come up with many more. Proverbs 6:16-19 has a seven-sin list, but it’s quite different:

There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

4. Almost. See Revelation, especially chapters 14 and 15. The angels are dressed in shining linen with gold sashes  The figure seated on the cloud, however, is “one like the son of man”—i.e., Jesus (see Revelation 14:14-16). Finally, there is a lot of harp playing among both angels and humans (Revelation 5:8 and Revelation 15:2).

5. Almost. Proverbs 17:22 says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

6. Yes, see John 3:3—“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”

7. Nope, not in the Bible. I’ve never quite understood this phrase… yes, we appropriate his sacrifice on our behalf, but that isn’t asking Jesus to come live inside us. I thought it was the Holy Spirit who moves in when we become a Christian. And don’t we give ourselves to Jesus, not the other way around? Sounds like another blog post some day.

8. That’s actually a quote from Jimi Hendrix!

9. The phrase “eat, drink, and be merry” is in the Bible, but it’s given as an alternative to seeking after God and His ways. See  Ecclesiastes8:15 and Luke 12:19.

10. No, that’s a quote from H.H. Riley. Who’s he? According to Google books,

With original illustrations. Writer, lawyer and politician, Henry Hiram Riley contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine, under the pen-name of Simon Oakleaf, a series of articles called “Puddleford Papers, or Humors of the West,” which were followed by “Puddleford and its People.” The earlier Puddleford papers, which were partly humorous and partly descriptive of nature, were subsequently published in a volume in a revised form and attained widespread popularity.

So, how did you do? Do you have a challenge for me? What other common phrases do we mistakenly attribute to the Bible?