Sacraments trivia, the verse beside the sign.

In which Pauline letter does Paul give the institutional words of the Lord's Supper that the church has used liturgically for two thousand years?

1. Romans
2. 1 Corinthians
3. Ephesians
4. Hebrews

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'"1 Corinthians 11:23-24

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 contains Paul's transmission of the Last Supper words — likely written before any of the Synoptic Gospels were finalised. "Do this in remembrance of me" is the institutional command. Paul is correcting Corinthian abuses of the supper, and the words he quotes have been at the centre of Christian worship ever since.

In Matthew 28, the risen Christ commands his disciples to baptise in what name?

1. In the name of Jesus only
2. Of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
3. Of the Lord God Almighty
4. Of Christ and his apostles

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."Matthew 28:19

The Great Commission gives the church its baptismal formula — a single divine name, three persons. "In the name" (singular) and the three coordinated persons together is one of the New Testament's clearest Trinitarian statements. Acts records some baptisms simply "in the name of Jesus" (Acts 2:38, 8:16), which most theologians read as shorthand rather than as a competing formula.

At the Last Supper, Jesus says that the cup is the new covenant in what?

1. In his body
2. In his blood
3. In his name
4. In his Spirit

"This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."Luke 22:20

Jesus echoes Jeremiah 31:31 — "Behold, the days are coming… when I will make a new covenant" — and identifies his own blood as the covenant blood. Hebrews builds on this: the old covenant was sealed with the blood of bulls and goats (Hebrews 9:18-22), the new with the blood of Christ once for all (Hebrews 9:26). Every celebration of the Lord's Supper is a participation in that new-covenant inauguration.

Who baptised Jesus in the Jordan?

1. Peter
2. Zechariah
3. John the Baptist
4. An angel

"Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him."Matthew 3:13

John's baptism was a Jewish purification rite calling Israel to repentance ahead of the kingdom. Jesus' submission to it — "to fulfil all righteousness" — is the moment heaven opens, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the Father's voice is heard. The early church saw the Jordan as the prototype of Christian baptism: the Spirit descending on the candidate, the Father naming a beloved child.

In Roman Catholic teaching, how many sacraments are recognised?

1. Two
2. Three
3. Five
4. Seven

"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord."1 Corinthians 12:4-5

Rome and the Eastern Orthodox both number seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation (Chrismation), the Eucharist, Reconciliation (Penance), Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. The Council of Trent (1547) defined this list dogmatically against the Reformers. Most Protestants recognise only two — Baptism and the Lord's Supper — on the grounds that only these two have an explicit dominical institution and a visible sign joined to the gospel promise.

The Roman Catholic doctrine that, in the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the substance of Christ's body and blood is called what?

1. Consubstantiation
2. Transubstantiation
3. Memorialism
4. Sacramental union

"This is my body, which is given for you."Luke 22:19

Transubstantiation was formally defined at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) using Aristotelian categories of "substance" and "accidents." Lutherans hold a "sacramental union" (sometimes loosely called consubstantiation): the true body and blood are present "in, with, and under" the bread and wine. Reformed theology (Calvin, Westminster) teaches a real spiritual presence received by faith. Zwingli's view — that the Supper is a memorial — is held by many Baptists and free churches. The whole map of post-Reformation Protestantism is partly a function of how these views diverge.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 92) defines a sacrament as "a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers." This is sometimes summarised as "a visible word." Which Reformer originally used that phrase?

1. Martin Luther
2. John Calvin
3. Augustine of Hippo
4. Thomas Cranmer

"Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."Romans 10:17

Augustine famously called sacraments verbum visibile — "the visible word." Just as preaching delivers the gospel through the ear, the sacraments deliver the same gospel through the eye, the touch, the taste. The Reformers (Luther, Calvin) eagerly retrieved Augustine's formula as a way to retain a high view of the sacraments while insisting that their power resides in the gospel-word attached to the sign, not in the bare elements themselves.

Two broad traditions of Christian baptismal practice persist. Which view holds that the children of believers should be baptised on the same covenantal grounds that male infants were circumcised in the old covenant?

1. Credobaptism
2. Paedobaptism (covenantal infant baptism)
3. Believer's baptism by immersion
4. Re-baptism

"For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."Acts 2:39

Paedobaptism (from Greek pais, "child") is held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, and Methodist traditions. The argument turns on covenant continuity: if circumcision marked infants of the old covenant, baptism — the new-covenant sign — properly marks the children of believers in the new. Credobaptists (Baptists, most independent evangelicals) argue that the New Testament pattern is profession-then-baptism and that baptism signifies a personal exercise of faith. The exegetical centre of the debate is whether Colossians 2:11-12 and Acts 2:39 establish covenant continuity or whether they require an antecedent personal faith.

In the Reformed tradition, the doctrine that Christ is truly present in the Lord's Supper to the faith of the believer — but received by spiritual rather than physical eating — is most associated with which Reformer?

1. Martin Luther
2. Huldrych Zwingli
3. John Calvin
4. Thomas Müntzer

"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?"1 Corinthians 10:16

Calvin steered between Luther (real bodily presence "in, with, and under" the bread) and Zwingli (memorial). His teaching: by the Spirit, the faithful communicant truly receives Christ's body and blood — not because Christ comes down into the bread, but because the Spirit lifts the believer up to feed on the ascended Christ. The Westminster Confession (29.7) gives the classic Reformed formulation: "really, but spiritually, present." The Marburg Colloquy (1529) between Luther and Zwingli failed to reach agreement; Calvin's mediating account became the standard in the Reformed family.

The Latin phrase ex opere operato — "from the work performed" — is a Roman Catholic technical term for the efficacy of the sacraments. What does it mean?

1. The sacraments work only if the recipient has personal faith
2. The sacraments are merely symbolic acts
3. The sacraments confer grace through the act itself, independent of the worthiness of the minister
4. The sacraments require apostolic succession to be valid

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God."1 Peter 3:18

"Ex opere operato" was Augustine's answer to the Donatists, who taught that the worthiness of the minister determines the validity of the sacrament. Augustine insisted that the sacrament's power rests on Christ's work, not the minister's character. The Council of Trent (Session VII) formalised the phrase: the sacraments confer grace by the act done, not by the merit of either minister or recipient — though Catholic teaching has always insisted the recipient must not place a positive obstacle in the way. The Reformers retained Augustine's anti-Donatist concern but rejected the Tridentine formulation as risking a quasi-magical view of the sacraments detached from faith.