Bible Challenge

Friday, 4th January 2008

The title of today’s post is actually the name of a board game.

Three weeks ago, I was at the Campus Crusade Media store located at Yellow Pages Building (near Braddell MRT station). They were having a 20% storewide year-end / pre-Christmas sale, so a few colleagues and I decided to go there during lunchtime.

While browsing around, a particular board game caught my eye. Entitled the Bible Challenge, and described as "an exciting way to learn about the Bible", it is a game meant for 2 to 4 players (or 2 to 4 teams), ages 10 and up.

This seemed to be describing my family of 4 perfectly, especially since our son Mark just turned 10 three months before, in September 2007.

Since there was a 20% discount on the S$47 price, I decided to buy it (together with a couple of interlinear bibles, but that is a topic for another day)...

Essentially, the game consists of a board with numerous squares of 7 different colours, named after the 66 books of the bible (and the chapters contained therein, ie. Genesis 50, Exodus 40, Leviticus 27, etc).

There are also 4 game tokens, a die, 4 rings of 7 different colours each (ie. 28 rings) and 300 cards with 7 questions/answers (ie. 2,100 questions) stored in 2 boxes.

The 7 colours represent the following categories:

1. Gold (Life of Christ)
2. Blue (General)
3. Teal (Places)
4. Dark Purple (New Testament)
5. Burgundy (Old Testament)
6. Light Purple (People)
7. Green (Quotations)

A sample of one of the cards (front and back) is shown on the left and right.

Note that the question has to be asked by another player/team because the answer is provided just next to it. What makes it even more useful is that the Scripture text, where applicable, is also provided with the answer.

The objective of the game is to move around the board with the aid of the die, and collect a ring of each colour by answering correctly a question for each of the 7 categories.

As an illustration, let’s say a three is thrown at the start of the game. This results in one's token being moved to the square "Leviticus". A card is then drawn from one of the 2 boxes.

Since this square is coloured blue, another player/team will ask the question in the blue box of the card, ie. “Which prophet wrote the last book in the Old Testament?”. If the correct answer "Malachi" is furnished, a blue-coloured ring is placed around the token. The game continues with the next player/team until a player/team obtains all 7 rings.

I played the game with my family, and we had a wonderful time learning more about what is found in the Word of God. Where the questions were tougher, we would "modify" the rules slightly to give the kids an edge by giving them clues or multiple-choice answers, rather than expect them to answer outright.

At the end of the game, everyone of us learnt more about the Word of God. But what made the difference is that unlike trivial pursuit, this knowledge that we obtained was in something that is eternal.

Like what was written on the box "Some knowledge is trivial, some is eternal”. Can I hear a good Amen to that!

It was also a great time of family-bonding :-)

In fact, come to think of it, this game is also great for cell gatherings where 4 different teams (made up of families) can participate. It's indeed great and wholesome fun for the entire spiritual family!