I'm in charge of writing the Bible Bowl questions for Teen Week this year. Trey Reely (the director) wrote them last year and I gave him a hard time about them, so he kindly (?) passed the torch on to me. My instructions are to keep it under a thousand questions and require no more than an associate's degree in Bible to answer.

It's fun putting this thing together. Some of them I came up with off the top of my head, but I decided to just read through my Bible until things struck me that would make good questions -- particularly considering we're dealing with teens here. Which is how I came to include the questions about Ehud and King Eglon. Figured the teens (particularly the guys) would get a kick out of the very fat man whose guards didn't want to open his chamber because they figured he was ... indisposed.

I know they'll grumble, but I'm being merciful. I'm giving them a study guide and I have at least book and chapter (and usually verses) references for each question -- they don't just have to hunt them all up outta nowhere. Too bad they don't seem to get nearly the kick out of this that I do.

Sometimes I wonder how you inspire that in a kid? When I teach classes, it's easy enough to get them interested. But how do you get them to take that home with them? How do you make it stick? How do you convince them that the word of God really IS "sweeter than honey" -- and not only that, it's NOT boring? Because without fail, I have some kid tell me, "I didn't know THAT was in there... that's COOL." (They tend to speak in capital letters.)

That's what I want to do, but not only teens. I want to inspire interest in and love for the Bible in people. Because there's fascinating stuff there -- beyond the fact that it's the history of God's people and the testament to his working in the world and in the lives of man, there's some seriously funny and fantastic stuff in there besides.

I guess it's a question for the ages.