Bible Trivia Quiz | Signs and Healings in John | LDigging Deeper

Question 1. At the pool of Bethesda, how long had the man Jesus healed been sick?

Answer: Thirty and eight years, that is, 38 years (John 5:5).

Context & Exhortation: John describes a pool in Jerusalem by the sheep market, called Bethesda, with five porches. A great number of sick, blind, lame and withered people lay there waiting for the water to move (John 5:2–3).

Among them lay a man who had been ill for 38 years, longer than many of the people around him had been alive. Jesus saw him and knew he had been in that condition a long time, and He asked, “Wilt thou be made whole?” (John 5:6).

Jesus then said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk”, and immediately the man was made whole, took up his bed and walked (John 5:8–9). One word from Jesus did what 38 years of waiting by the pool had not done.

Some of us have carried the same problem for so long that we no longer expect change. Let us bring that long-standing need to Jesus again, because the length of the wait does not limit His power.

Question 2. When Jesus asked the man at the pool, “Wilt thou be made whole?”, what reason did the man give for not being healed?

Answer: He had no one to put him into the pool when the water was troubled, and someone else always stepped down before him (John 5:7).

Context & Exhortation: Many people believed that when the water in the pool was stirred, the first person to step in would be healed (John 5:4). The man had been waiting for that moment, but he could not move quickly enough.

Jesus asked a simple yes-or-no question, but the man did not say yes. He answered, “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me” (John 5:7). His hope was fixed on the pool and on someone to help him reach it.

Jesus did not need the pool or a helper. He spoke, and the man was healed on the spot (John 5:8–9). The psalmist wrote, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him” (Psalm 62:5).

It is easy to fix our hope on one method or one person to fix our situation. But we are encouraged to look past our explanations of why things have not changed and look to Jesus Himself.

Question 3. Before feeding the five thousand, which disciple did Jesus test by asking where they could buy bread for the crowd?

Answer: Philip (John 6:5–6).

Context & Exhortation: A great company followed Jesus to a mountain near the sea of Galilee because they had seen His miracles. Jesus looked at the crowd and asked Philip, “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” (John 6:5). “Whence” means from where.

John adds that Jesus said this “to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do” (John 6:6). To “prove” here means to test. Jesus already had a plan, and He wanted to see where Philip would look for an answer.

Philip did the arithmetic and said that two hundred pennyworth of bread would not be enough for each person to have a little (John 6:7). 

Jesus then took a boy’s five barley loaves and two small fishes, gave thanks, and fed everyone, with twelve baskets left over (John 6:11–13).

Like Philip, we often count what we have before we think of what Jesus can do. As we do the maths,  honestly, we can bring the little we have to God, trusting that He already knows what He will do.

Question 4. After Jesus fed the five thousand, what did the people plan to do, causing Him to leave for a mountain alone?

Answer: They planned to take Him by force and make Him a king (John 6:15).

Context & Exhortation: After the meal, the people said, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world” (John 6:14). They were excited about a leader who could feed them and, they hoped, free them from Rome.

Jesus knew they intended to make Him king by force, so He went away into a mountain by Himself (John 6:15). He would not accept a crown on their terms, because His kingdom was not the kind they had in mind.

The next day, when the crowd found Him again, Jesus told them plainly, “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled” (John 6:26). He then called Himself “the bread of life” (John 6:35). Later He told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

It is possible to follow Jesus mainly for what He can give us. So, let us examine why we come to Him, and seek Him for who He is, not only for the bread.

Question 5. In the Gospel of John, the Jews wondered aloud whether Jesus would go to “the dispersed.” Who were the dispersed?

Answer: Jews scattered and living among the Gentile nations outside the land of Israel. The Jews asked, “will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?” (John 7:35).

Context & Exhortation: During the feast of tabernacles, Jesus told the crowd, “Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come” (John 7:34). Puzzled, the Jews asked one another where He could go that they could not find Him (John 7:35).

Since the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, many Jews had lived outside Israel, spread across the Roman world. This scattered community was called the dispersion. On the day of Pentecost, Jews from more than a dozen nations were in Jerusalem (Acts 2:5–11).

The leaders meant their question as mockery, but it came true in a way they did not expect. After the resurrection, the gospel did go to the dispersed and to the Gentiles. James addressed his letter “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1).

God used a mocking question to describe exactly where His message would go. Family, let us remember that no one is too far away or too scattered for the good news of Jesus to reach them.

Question 6. After Jesus anointed the eyes of the man born blind, in which pool did He tell him to wash, and what does its name mean?

Answer: The pool of Siloam, which means “Sent” (John 9:7).

Context & Exhortation: Jesus saw a man blind from birth. He spat on the ground, made clay, anointed the man’s eyes with it, and told him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (John 9:6–7). John adds that the name means “Sent”.

The man went and washed, “and came seeing” (John 9:7). He had to walk to the pool while still blind, with clay on his eyes, trusting the word of someone he had not yet seen. His healing came as he obeyed.

The name of the pool points to Jesus, who often called Himself the one sent by the Father. Just before this healing He said, “I must work the works of him that sent me” and “I am the light of the world” (John 9:4–5).

The man did not understand everything, but he did what Jesus said. We are encouraged today to take the step of obedience Jesus has already shown us, even before we can see how it will turn out.

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