Such an innocuous title, sounds so easy, right? After all, this is standard content, so most “well-informed” Christians should be able to pass it, no problem-o. (Or so I thought)

The SBCT is something Trinity Evangelical Divinity School does to ensure that incoming Divinity students are up-to-speed enough on the Bible to not flounder their way through their first couple years. The idea: wonderful. The execution: maybe a little sketchy.

In case you’re an incoming Divinity Student at TEDS studying for your SBCT, and want some advice: read the Bible a lot. There’s really no way to cram for this test unless someone gives you all the questions, and I’m not going to do that. The content test focuses not on big, important things, as you might expect, but less-crucial minutiae. For example, you might be expected to know:

What region is [some random city] in?
What is the reationship between [some guy] and [some other guy]?
In what book is [some bible verse] written?
How would you describe [some OT king]?
and, my favorite,
What city/region is [some minor character] from?

Unfortunately, if you’re not good with names, locations, and marginal characters, this test could be a bugger. Thankfully, it’s all multiple-choice, and you get two attempts. While the test is randomly-chosen questions, you do get a bit of overlap, so if you fail the first time, hopefully you’ll know what gaps you have in your Biblical Content Knowledge.

Your studying philosophy should not be “what is crucial to life and doctrine?”, but “where was this guy from? where did this happen? who was he related to? what was his occupation?” I suppose at the end of the day it will certainly weed out anyone who’s not very familiar with the Bible, but unfortunately could weed out a whole lot of people who don’t have a Christian School eduction or a mind for random (often useless) facts.

If you’re going to take this test: good luck! At the worst, you have to end up paying about $600/credit hours for NT and/or OT review courses. $1800 because you didn’t know that one guy was a tentmaker? Yikes!