The Practically Guaranteed* Way To Be A Top 10 Bible Quizzer

I have a Black Belt and I’m not afraid to use it! But it is not in Karate (in which I’m only a Green Belt). No, I have a Six Sigma Black Belt. “What is that” you say? It’s a Black Belt in statistics. Geeky, I know. But with it I can do some pretty neat tricks:

• Want to know the probability that 2 people in a crowd of 40 share a birthday? I can tell you (it’s 90%, by the way).
• How many forest rangers are needed on any given shift to have no more than a 1% chance of a fire going undetected while one of them is responding to an issue? Only you - with a little help from math - can prevent forest fires (you need 3 if an average issue takes a ranger away for 2 hours).
• The FDA allows up to 60 insect fragments and 1 rodent hair per 100 grams of chocolate. How confident are you that the 3.3 oz candy bar you just ate is pest-free? (I won’t spoil your lunch by telling you here. But if you really want to know, email me).
• Want to dominate your Fantasy Football league? I’m your guy (although I've learned that you probably won’t be invited back after winning it a few years in a row).

Now, what if I told you that if you study one certain way - in typical districts - you would be practically guaranteed* a Top 10 finish? (*By practically I mean a 94% probability of success). Does this interest you? Here’s how to do it:

The Quizzers that commit to learning Memory Verses made the Top 10 on their District a whopping 94% of the time!

Using data from the past 6 years on my own Bible Quiz District (Louisiana & Mississippi) and available information found on the internet for several other Districts, one thing is clear: The Quizzers that commit to learning Memory Verses made the Top 10 on their District a whopping 94% of the time! Additionally, those same quizzers have a 70% chance of finishing in the Top 5! 

For the purposes of this study, a quizzer was considered a “memory verse” person if they were simply in the top 4 for that question category for the quiz year. In other words, you don’t have to be the best Memory Verse quizzer on your District – just be in the top 4 or so.  In my home District, for example, 80% of the Top 20 Best-Ever Season Averages belong to quizzers who finished in the top 4 for Memory Verses quoted that particular season:

Still not convinced? Here is how the top 4 Memory Verse quizzers for the past 7 years finished for Season Average:

So why does this work? Since there are only 3 Memory Verse questions in a game (Nazarene-style quizzing), how can these quizzers be averaging more than 3 correct questions a game? (In Nazarene-style Bible Quizzing each correct question is worth 20 points, yet these quizzers are averaging 60-80 points per game for an entire season). Consider the following:

In the entire Book of Acts, there are 1001 verses. For the quiz season, the Nazarene memory verse list encompasses 118 of those verses. Essentially, memory verses cover 11.79% of the Book of Acts.

In a 20-question Bible Quiz match, 3 questions ask for a Memory Verse.

Applying a sequence of Bernoulli trials to the 17 remaining questions yields the following Binomial Distributions:

Yes, there is a small chance (11.9%, to be exact. Or about 1 out of every 10 games) that you will not get any other questions based on a memory verse (other than the 3 Memory Verse questions). Conversely, there is an 88% probability (or about 9 out of every 10 games) that you will be familiar with 1 or more of the remaining 17 questions, thus giving you a shot at 4 or more questions (3 memory verse questions plus 1 or more of the other 17 questions). And in 6 out of every 10 games you should know the answer to 5 or more of the questions!

I am pleased with these results because it supports the mission and purpose of Teen Bible Quizzing: to encourage youth to study God’s Word – not just the questions in a book!

Just remember: mere head-knowledge of Scripture will not lead to transformation, but instead take Scripture to heart through faith and obedience.

One of the most powerful ways you can transform your spiritual life is to memorize Scripture.

As a Bible Quizzer or a Coach of Bible Quizzers, we have the awesome privilege of knowing God’s heart through the Bible. And one of the most powerful ways you can transform your spiritual life is to memorize Scripture. The Bible says in Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

You may not believe you can memorize Bible verses, but that’s just not true. You can memorize what you want to memorize. Do you know the Pledge of Allegiance? I’m sure you also memorized the Lord’s Prayer and John 3:16. You memorize what’s important to you: phone numbers, words to songs, lines from movies, football statistics. How important is the Bible to you?

It’s really a matter of motivation rather than skill. David wrote in Psalm 119:72, “The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver or gold.” What is it worth to you? In Acts 3, Peter tells a beggar who was lame from birth “silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” When you understand how important and how valuable God’s Word is, you’ll get serious about memorizing significant portions of it. Then you’ll be like the beggar and go “walking and jumping, and praising God!”

And maybe pick up a Top 10 trophy along the way. 

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