1 John
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40 free 1 John trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
1 John is one of the shortest books in the New Testament and one of the most quoted. In five brief chapters it keeps returning to a few plain ideas: that God's character sets the pattern for how believers treat one another, that claims about belief are checked against conduct, and that not every teacher deserves a hearing. This quiz works through the letter chapter by chapter. Chapter 1 covers the opening claims of the eyewitnesses and what the letter says about sin and forgiveness. Chapter 2 covers the warnings about worldliness and false teachers, with several questions on the King James wording. Chapter 3 covers love between brothers and the Old Testament example the writer uses, chapter 4 covers discernment and the letter's famous statements about love, and chapter 5 covers belief, prayer, the closing verses and a clause that scholars have disputed for centuries. A handful of questions look at where the letter came from and how it has been read. It suits Bible study groups, Sunday school classes, youth quiz teams and anyone reading through the letters of John who wants to check what has stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation that points back to the text.
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Q 01According to 1 John 4:18, perfect love drives out which emotion, one the verse ties to punishment?
Fear
Fear has no place in love, the verse says, and the next line explains how believers can love at all: God loved them first.
Q 02Which word, found in the Bible only in 1 John and 2 John, names those who deny the Father and the Son?
Antichrist
Antichrist is absent even from Revelation, and 1 John 2:18 uses it in the plural, saying many of them had already come.
Q 03Which Old Testament figure does 1 John 3:12 hold up as a warning, saying his own actions were evil?
Cain
Cain killed his brother Abel, and 1 John gives the motive: Abel's conduct was righteous while his own was not.
Q 04According to 1 John 3:15, everyone who hates his brother already counts as which kind of criminal?
A murderer
A murderer is the blunt verdict, recalling the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus sets anger at a brother beside the commandment against killing.
Q 05According to 1 John 4:8, which says God is love, what does anyone who does not love fail to do?
Know God
Know God is what the unloving cannot do, the verse says, and the same three-word description of him returns eight verses later.
Q 06The final verse of 1 John ends the letter abruptly with a warning to stay away from what?
Idols
Idols get the last word because 1 John has no farewell or closing greeting, and the 'Amen' printed in the King James Version is absent from critical editions.
Q 07Which image does 1 John 1:5 use for God, adding that in him there is nothing of its opposite?
Light
Light is the letter's first big claim about God, and a condition follows: nobody can claim closeness to him while living in darkness.
Q 08Which act does 1 John 1:9 say leads God to forgive sins and cleanse people from all unrighteousness?
Confession
Confession is all the verse asks for, and the promise rests on God's character: forgiving, the verse says, is what a just God does.
Q 09What does 1 John 4:20 call anyone who claims to love God while hating a brother he can see?
A liar
A liar is the charge, and the reasoning is simple: someone who cannot love the brother in front of him cannot love a God he has never seen.
Q 101 John 3:1 marvels that the Father's love lets believers be called what, unrecognized by the world?
Children of God
Children of God is the title, and the next verse looks ahead: what they are yet to become has not been revealed.
Q 11Which kind of proof does the opening of 1 John add to what the writers heard and saw?
Touch
Touch completes the list: the writers say their own hands handled what they proclaim, which reads as a claim to have met Jesus in person.
Q 121 John 1:4 gives one reason for writing: so that which feeling might be full, or complete?
Joy
Joy is the first of several stated purposes, though manuscripts differ on whose it is: the King James Version says 'your', many modern Bibles 'our'.
Q 131 John 1:3 says the writers report what they saw and heard so that readers may have what with them?
Fellowship
Fellowship is the aim, and the verse widens it at once: the bond is also with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
Q 21According to 1 John 3:8, the Son of God appeared for the purpose of destroying what?
The works of the devil
The works of the devil are the target, and the same verse explains the charge: the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
Q 221 John 3:16 says that because Jesus gave himself for believers, they ought to do what for one another?
Lay down their lives
Lay down their lives is the call, and the next verse makes it concrete: someone with possessions must not ignore a brother in need.
Q 23The King James Version of 1 John 3:17 says ignoring a needy brother shuts up one's what of compassion?
Bowels
Q 14In the King James Version, 1 John 2:1 says anyone who sins has Jesus Christ as what with the Father?
An advocate
An advocate translates the Greek parakletos, a word the New Testament uses only five times and otherwise for the Holy Spirit.
Q 151 John 2:16 lists the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and which third worldly thing?
The pride of life
The pride of life completes a trio that the letter says comes from the world rather than the Father, straight after telling readers not to love the world.
Q 16Which group does 1 John 2:13 address separately from fathers, saying they have overcome the evil one?
Young men
Young men are told twice that they have beaten the evil one, and the repetition adds why: they are strong and God's word abides in them.
Q 17In the King James Version, 1 John 2:2 uses which word for Jesus as the sacrifice that atones for sins?
Propitiation
Propitiation returns in 1 John 4:10, and both verses use the Greek hilasmos, which many modern Bibles translate as 'atoning sacrifice'.
Q 181 John 2:6 says whoever claims to abide in Jesus must do what in the same way he did?
Walk
Walk is the verb, a picture of everyday conduct, so the claim to belong to Jesus is checked against behavior rather than words.
Q 19The King James Version of 1 John 2:20 gives believers what from the Holy One, a word modern Bibles replace?
An unction
An unction is an anointing, the word modern Bibles use, and verse 27 says it teaches believers so well that they need no other teacher.
Q 201 John 5:13 says the letter was written so that believers in the Son of God may be sure they have what?
Eternal life
Eternal life is the assurance the letter wants readers to hold, and two verses earlier it says exactly where that gift is found: in God's Son.
Bowels sounds odd today, so modern translations have the person close his heart, or simply withhold compassion, from the brother in need.
Q 241 John 3:18 urges love not merely in word or tongue but in which two ways?
In deed and in truth
In deed and in truth is the standard, and the letter says living this way lets believers set their hearts at rest before God.
Q 25The King James Version of 1 John 3:4 defines sin in one phrase as the transgression of what?
The law
The law is what sin breaks in the King James wording, while modern translations compress the same Greek into a single word, lawlessness.
Q 261 John 4:1 warns believers not to trust every spirit but to do what with the spirits first?
Test them
Test them is the instruction, 'try the spirits' in the King James Version, and the reason given is that many false prophets are at large.
Q 271 John 4:17 says love made perfect gives believers boldness, or confidence, on which coming day?
The day of judgment
The day of judgment can be faced boldly, the verse reasons, because believers are already like Jesus here and now.
Q 28The King James Version of 1 John 4:6 says refusing to hear the letter's writers shows the spirit of what?
Error
Error has an opposite in the same verse, and the dividing line is simple: those who are of God listen to the writers, the rest do not.
Q 291 John 4:14 gives the writers' eyewitness testimony that the Father sent the Son to be what?
Savior of the world
Savior of the world is the same title the Samaritan villagers give Jesus in the fourth Gospel, after the woman at the well brings them to him.
Q 301 John 3:2 says that when Christ appears believers will be like him, because they will do what?
See him as he is
See him as he is, the verse promises, and it draws a present-day consequence: everyone holding this hope keeps himself pure.