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A Turn of Phrase

Many modern-day phrases are direct or slightly modified quotations from the Bible. But some familiar sayings are assumed to be biblical when they actually are not. Can you detect the true biblical phrases from the false ones?

1. Out of the mouth of babes
True
False

2. Forbidden fruit
True
False

3. God save the king
True
False

4. Feet of clay
True
False

5. The millennium
True
False

6. At their wit's end
True
False

7. Fall by the wayside
True
False

8. Old wine in new wineskins
True
False

9. A house divided against itself
True
False

10. Put words in one's mouth
True
False

11. Haste makes waste
True
False

12.A drop in the bucket
True
False

Answers to Build Your Bible Power
1. True. "Out of the mouth of babes … hast thou ordained strength … " (Psa. 8:1-2). Jesus also makes reference in Matthew 21:16 to this passage.
2. False. In Genesis 2, although God commands Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he never refers to it as "forbidden fruit."
3. True. You may think the British coined this one, but it's actually the shout of the Israelites in 1 Samuel 10:24 when Samuel introduces Saul, their first king.
4. True. In Daniel 2:31-33, God gives a detailed description to the Jewish captive of the bigger-than-life figure in Nebuchadnezzar's dream who had, among other things, "feet part of clay."
5. False. Although Revelation 20:1-5 mentions the meaning of millennium-"a period of a thousand years"-the word itself never appears in the Bible.
6. True. Psalm 107:27 depicts sailors caught in a storm as "at their wit's end," true of anyone facing a seemingly hopeless situation.
7. True. The words introduce the sower in Jesus' parable (Matt. 13:3-9, kjv) who "when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side." Unlike the modern meaning of the phrase, which indicates something forgotten, the sower's seeds were noticed and eaten by birds.
8. False. Jesus first gives a warning, then advice in Matthew 9:17: "Neither do men put new wine into old wineskins … they put new wine into new wineskins." Nowhere does he refer to old wine being put into new wineskins. A trick question. Sorry.
9. True. Abraham Lincoln, running for the U.S. Senate in 1858, reiterated the wisdom of Jesus' words to the Pharisees in Matthew 12:25, effectively using it to point out the impossibility of uniting slave states and free.
10. True. When King David's son Absalom disappeared after murdering his brother Amnon, Joab (Israel's commander-in-chief) hatched a scheme with the woman from Tekoah to bring father and son back together. As 2 Samuel 14:3 explains, " … Joab put the words in her mouth."
11. False. It may sound like one of Solomon's proverbs, but Ben Franklin penned, "Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste."
12. True. How powerful is the Lord? According to Isaiah 40:15, hostile nations are "as a drop of a bucket" to him, i.e., inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Though the meaning remained the same, the phrase was later changed to "a drop in the bucket."

Keeping Score?
7-8 correct Good
9-10 correct Excellent
11-12 correct Outstanding

Copyright © 1996 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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Last updated: September 10, 1996

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