A Trivial Pursuit

Raise your hand if you love taking online quizzes and showing off your knowledge and superiority over the 75% that are unable to ace the quiz you just took. Okay, now, raise two hands if you absolutely cannot stand and abhor the thought of scrolling through your newsfeed only to see that people have spent the majority of their days wasting time by taking online quizzes and posting their results.

I’m usually one of those that would be raising two hands. It seems as if my Facebook feed lately is just a large string of quizzes, cooking videos, and kids pictures. Not that there is anything wrong with any of that, it is your profile, and you should do what you want with it.

This morning, however, I found myself giving in and taking a quiz that my aunt, Barbara Schirmer, posted titled “96% OF CHRISTIANS CAN’T ACE THIS NEW TESTAMENT CHALLENGE. CAN YOU?” I thought it would be interesting to test my knowledge of The New Testament and see if it matches up with the rest of the world. If you’re able to see the featured image above, then you would know that I aced the quiz, but I cannot make myself feel good about this. I cannot accept the fact that a 15 question quiz is the final determining factor on whether or not I possess expert knowledge of The Word of God.

The questions in this quiz were trivial. Questions such as: How many gospels are in The New Testament? Who baptized Jesus? Who, besides Jesus, walked on water? To me, thanks to my studies, attending church, Sunday school, and Bible study, these were easy answers. In fact, they were trivial.

Trivial Pursuit is a popular board game, and many educated folks like to pull it out on occasion to see if they can conquer their friends in a battle of wits. Many believe that to win this game, you must either be the smartest person in the room or lucky enough to draw cards that you already know the answers to. However, throughout all of this, those that play Trivial Pursuit rarely realize that this quest to acclaim the title of the smartest person in the room is pointless. In fact, the title of the game tells you that all of this is useless and is for naught.

Let’s take a moment and look at the definition of the word trivial.

a :  of little worth or importance a trivial objection trivial problems

b :  relating to or being the mathematically simplest case; specifically :  characterized by having all variables equal to zero a trivial solution to a linear equation

Now, let’s connect this definition to the quiz that I took this morning. I was given 15 questions that would determine my level of knowledge of The New Testament. I quickly answered all 15 questions correctly and was given the result of New Testament Expert. That’s great. That’s wonderful. I can answer trivia questions based on the Bible. All in all, however, it is pointless. It is of little worth or importance. It is trivial.

My knowledge of the Bible is trivial unless I use it. There are plenty of people in this world that know the Bible better than I do. Some of them use it and apply it to their lives. Others, however, do absolutely nothing with it. Several years ago I worked for a building supply company in Winchester and Versailles and would occasionally meet people like this. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t cuss, drink, and cut up like they did. Some of these people even referred to themselves as Christians, not seeing the folly of their actions. They knew what was written in the Bible, but they didn’t live it. They chose to live their lives the way they saw fit.

After receiving a promotion within the company and moving to Versailles, I met a man that would always give me a hard time about this. Once, he even accused my parents of brainwashing me into believing that all of this stuff in the Bible is true. Here’s the kicker. That very day that he made this accusation he told me that he had read the entire Bible four time. Four times! Why do that if you’re not going to apply it? Why waste your time? This man had great knowledge of the Bible, but this knowledge was trivial because he wasn’t using it in the manner in which God had prescribed for it to be used.

I hope that in the years since I left that organization that the man in which I am speaking of found God and started applying those words that he has reread over and over to every aspect of his life.

Folks, if we want to call ourselves Christians, we have to actually live it. We have to actually take what has been written down, the holy scriptures inspired by God, and apply it to our lives. Yes, we have to know it. We must have the knowledge that comes from reading and studying the Bible, but we have to use it, too. All of it.