1 Timothy Trivia
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100 free 1 Timothy trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Paul's first letter to Timothy is the New Testament's manual for running a church. Timothy had been left in charge of a congregation in a great port city, with false teachers to silence and a young leader's credibility to establish, and the letter answers the practical questions that follow: who may lead, how to treat the old and the young, what to do about widows, and what to make of wealth. These 100 questions follow the letter chapter by chapter, from the opening greeting to the final charge: the two men Paul handed over for correction, prayers for those in power, the lists of qualifications for church officers, the warnings about asceticism and about wealth, the rules for the widows' roll, the famous advice about Timothy's health, and the sayings that became English idioms. A few step outside the text to the letter's date, its oldest manuscript and its afterlife in hymns and controversy. It suits a Bible study group, a church quiz night or anyone preparing a Sunday-school lesson on the pastoral epistles: play on your phone with instant explanations, or print it and read it aloud. Every answer is cited to the King James text or to a reference page.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Paul asked Timothy to stay in which city and silence false teachers while Paul went on to Macedonia?
Ephesus
Ephesus was the post Timothy was told to hold while Paul travelled on, and the letter never says whether Paul came back, though 3:14 has him 'hoping to come unto thee shortly'.
Q 02Which group does 1 Timothy's 'faithful saying' say Christ came into the world to save, 'of whom I am chief'?
Sinners
Sinners is the word, and Paul calls himself their chief because he had been 'a blasphemer, and a persecutor' before he obtained mercy.
Q 03Which two men does 1 Timothy 1:20 say Paul 'delivered unto Satan' so that they might learn not to blaspheme?
Hymenaeus and Alexander
Hymenaeus and Alexander are the only false teachers the letter names, and 2 Timothy adds that Hymenaeus taught that the resurrection 'is past already'.
Q 04For what ailment does 1 Timothy 5:23 tell Timothy to 'drink no longer water' but take a little wine?
His stomach
His stomach and his 'often infirmities' are the reasons given, a rare glimpse of Timothy's health in a letter otherwise about running a church.
Q 05Which Roman governor does 1 Timothy 6:13 name as the one before whom Christ 'witnessed a good confession'?
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate is the only person from the Gospel narratives, apart from Jesus himself, named anywhere in the letter, and the verse uses that trial to charge Timothy to keep his own confession.
Q 06Which hymn by Walter Chalmers Smith takes its opening words from 1 Timothy 1:17?
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise lifts 'immortal, invisible, the only wise God' from the letter's first doxology, and its tune, St Denio, began life as a Welsh folk ballad before a hymnal borrowed it.
Q 07The Catholic Church cites 1 Timothy 2:12 to help justify which stance?
Rejecting female ordination
Rejecting female ordination is the stance, though the Vatican's 1976 declaration Inter Insigniores reads the verse narrowly, as a ban that 'solely concerns the official function of teaching in the Christian assembly'.
Q 08To which period do modern scholars generally assign the composition of 1 Timothy?
Late 1st to mid-2nd century
Late 1st to mid-2nd century is the usual bracket, partly because the letter's church offices and vocabulary look later than Paul's undisputed letters, and the word gnosis turns up in 6:20.
Q 09Which kind of fables does 1 Timothy 4:7 tell Timothy to refuse as 'profane'?
Old wives' fables
Old wives' fables is the King James wording, an early cousin of the idiom 'old wives' tale', and the 'Jewish fables' are real too: Titus 1:14 warns against them.
Q 10After urging Timothy to 'fight the good fight', 1 Timothy 6:12 tells him to 'lay hold on' what?
Eternal life
Eternal life is the thing to seize, and the same verse recalls that Timothy had 'professed a good profession before many witnesses'.
Q 11What does 1 Timothy 4:12 tell Timothy to 'let no man despise', before calling him 'an example of the believers'?
His youth
His youth is the thing no one may despise, because the verse before has just told the young man to 'command and teach' a church that included his elders.
Q 12To be enrolled at sixty for church support, a widow in 1 Timothy 5:10 must have washed the saints' what?
Feet
Feet come in a list that also asks whether she 'lodged strangers' and 'relieved the afflicted', and 5:16 tells believers to keep their own widows so that the church need not 'be charged' with them.
Q 131 Timothy 3:2 says a bishop must be blameless, vigilant, 'apt to teach' and 'the husband of' what?
One wife
Q 21Which church office does 1 Timothy 3:8 require to be 'grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine'?
Deacons
Deacons get that list, and 3:13 promises that those who serve well 'purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith'.
Q 221 Timothy 3:15 calls the church of the living God 'the pillar and ground of' what?
The truth
The truth is what the church holds up, in a sentence Paul writes in case he should 'tarry long' before he can reach Timothy in person.
Q 23What does 1 Timothy 5:17 say elders who rule well deserve, 'especially they who labour in the word'?
Double honour
Double honour is the phrase, and the following verse makes clear that pay is part of it by quoting 'the labourer is worthy of his reward'.
One wife is the phrase, repeated in 3:12 for the church's other office and flipped in 5:9, where an enrolled widow must have been 'the wife of one man'.
Q 14For whom does 1 Timothy 2:2 ask that prayers be made, so believers 'may lead a quiet and peaceable life'?
Kings and all in authority
Kings and all in authority are singled out within a call to pray 'for all men', and the reason given is that God 'will have all men to be saved'.
Q 15What reason does 1 Timothy 2:13 give for not permitting a woman to teach?
Adam was formed before Eve
Adam was formed before Eve is the argument, and the next verse adds a second: it was the woman, not Adam, who was deceived and fell into transgression.
Q 16What does 1 Timothy 4:8 say is 'profitable unto all things', in contrast to bodily exercise, which 'profiteth little'?
Godliness
Godliness wins the comparison because it holds 'promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come', while the body's training pays off only now.
Q 17Which animal's treatment under the Law does 1 Timothy 5:18 cite to argue that church elders deserve their pay?
The ox
The ox 'that treadeth out the corn' must not be muzzled, a rule from Deuteronomy that the letter pairs with 'the labourer is worthy of his reward' and calls scripture.
Q 18What image does 1 Timothy 1:19 use for people who 'put away' a good conscience and ruined their faith?
A shipwreck
A shipwreck is the picture, and the next verse names two men it had happened to, whom Paul handed over to be taught not to blaspheme.
Q 19P133, a single papyrus leaf carrying part of 1 Timothy 3 and 4, comes from which famous find?
Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 5259, labelled P133, belongs to the hoard dug from an Egyptian town's ancient rubbish mounds from 1896, yet it reached print only in the twenty-first century.
Q 201 Timothy 4:3 warns of 'latter times' teachers who forbid marriage and command abstaining from what?
Meats
Meats are named, and the passage brands such teaching the work of 'seducing spirits', insisting that 'every creature of God is good'.
Q 241 Timothy 2:6 says the 'one mediator between God and men' gave himself as what 'for all'?
A ransom
A ransom is the word, offered 'for all', and the next verse says this is the message for which Paul was made 'a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity'.
Q 251 Timothy 5:1 tells Timothy not to rebuke an older man but to 'intreat him' as what?
As a father
As a father is the rule, and the verse goes on to make the church a family: younger men 'as brethren', older women 'as mothers' and younger women 'as sisters, with all purity'.
Q 26How many people must back an accusation against an elder before 1 Timothy 5:19 allows it to be received?
Two or three
Two or three witnesses are required, a standard borrowed from the Law of Moses, while the next verse says those who do sin should be rebuked 'before all'.
Q 271 Timothy 3:5 asks how a man can take care of the church of God if he cannot rule what?
His own house
His own house is the proving ground, and the previous verse spells it out: a leader should have 'his children in subjection with all gravity'.
Q 28What does 1 Timothy 5:13 warn that idle younger widows may become, 'speaking things which they ought not'?
Tattlers and busybodies
Tattlers and busybodies is the charge, which is why the letter tells the younger widows to marry and 'give none occasion to the adversary'.
Q 29Whoever will not provide for his own family 'hath denied the faith', says 1 Timothy 5:8, and is worse than what?
An infidel
An infidel, meaning an unbeliever, is the comparison, and the verse sits inside the rules for widows, where children are told to 'requite their parents' first.
Q 30How does the apocryphal Acts of Timothy say Timothy met his death?
Killed by a festival mob
Killed by a festival mob: the Acts has Timothy try to halt a violent pagan festival, the Katagogia, and the revellers kill him with their clubs and stones.