Are You Smarter Than A Sunday School Teacher?

It seems like Bible knowledge games have become all the rage in my home over the past couple of days. I guess this is appropriate since today is the final day to register for the free BibleEye Quiz eBook. (you can register by midnight by commenting on THIS post) Not only have I been reading the BibleEye eBook but I also prepared a little pop quiz for my Sunday School class this past week. Looking ahead to the upcoming quarter we examined some of the Scriptures that we would be studying.

In addition to these quizzes, The American Bible Challenge premiered on the Game Show Network here in the US last week. By the way, it was watched by some 1.7 million viewers last week and set a record giving GSN its highest ratings ever. I did watch the show and though there were some things that I didn’t particularly like, overall I think I will watch the show again. I found some parts of the show to be a little too cheesy for my tastes and some of the earlier questions were a little too simple, but I am sure that this was done to broaden the appeal of the show to a larger audience.

I do support any effort to bring God’s Word to a larger audience, so I will continue to check out the show over the next couple of weeks. But today’s post is not about the television show. In addition to the television show, The American Bible Challenge also has a game for your iOS devices available for free in the iTunes store.

As soon as I saw that this game was available I immediately downloaded and jumped right in. My initial excitement soon turned to disappointment, however, when I realized that you have to log in with your Facebook account in order to play the game. (Since I do not have a personal Facebook account and organizational accounts will not work I was faced with not being able to play the game.) I do consider this to be a major hindrance and suggests that the developers of the game allow a user to play without logging in to the game.

I had decided to actually write this one off and forget about reviewing this application when my daughter decided that she wanted to play the game. So armed with her Facebook login and password, I was once again off to test my knowledge of the Bible. When you log in using your Facebook account you are given the option to prevent the application from automatically posting to your Facebook account. (I would always suggest NOT allowing any outside application to post to your account automatically.)

The game itself is organized by levels, with 4 being available right now and 5 more coming soon. Each level consists of 4 rounds and each round contains 7 – 10 questions. Just like in baseball, three strikes and you are sent packing with this game and you must start over to try to complete the round.

When I started out the game I was concerned that the game itself would not be challenging enough, however, by the time I made it to level 4 I was no longer worried about the challenge. I was being challenged, frustrated, and hooked. If I failed a round, I immediately jumped right back in to go again.

The questions that are presented are in the form of multiple choice, fill in the blank Scriptures, arranging events or people in order, and even bonus pictures to unscramble. There is enough information in the first four levels to challenge the most knowledgable Bible students yet the game remains very playable for the average Christian.

One of the highlights of the game is the study section. When you miss a question the corresponding Scriptures are added to your Bible study. Accessing this Bible study from the main menu is quick and easy and allows you to study and review those areas that you were having difficulty with. Even though this is very easy to access and manage, it might be overlooked by those like me who just prefer to dive in and start the game. If you don’t take the time to go back and check out these missed opportunities, you will be missing out on one of the best reasons to play this game. You will learn more about God’s Word from this game.

Overall, I highly recommend The American Bible Challenge App. It is free, fun, and good for all ages or levels of knowledge. My family and I have spent several days now sitting around and playing this game helping each other answer the questions and all the time learning more about the Holy Bible.

You can download The American Bible Challenge App today free from iTunes.

Did you watch The American Bible Challenge last week?

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