Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
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40 free Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jonathan Edwards preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in the summer of 1741, and it has been assigned in American literature and history classes ever since. Few texts of the colonial era are quoted as often, and few are as misunderstood: the man behind it was a philosopher and a careful observer of nature as well as a preacher. This quiz covers what students are usually asked about the sermon: the Bible verse it starts from, the images it uses to picture danger and rescue, how the argument is built, and what happened in the meeting house on the day. It also covers the wider revival movement, the ministers who were present, and the turns of Edwards's own life before and after. It suits anyone revising for a class test on the sermon, teachers looking for a ready-made review, and readers who simply want to know the text better. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, what creature is the sinner compared to, dangling over the flames?
A spider
A spider held over the flames is the sermon's most quoted image, and Jonathan Edwards knew the creature well: in his youth he wrote an essay on their ballooning flight.
Q 02By accounts of his preaching style, how did Jonathan Edwards deliver Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?
In a quiet voice
In a quiet voice, never shouting, Jonathan Edwards moved his hearers slowly from point to point towards one conclusion: they were lost without grace.
Q 03Which US vice president, the third to hold the office, was a grandson of preacher Jonathan Edwards?
Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr was the son of the preacher's daughter Esther, and is remembered for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
Q 04Jonathan Edwards died weeks after becoming president of the College of New Jersey, later renamed what?
Princeton
Princeton, then the College of New Jersey, installed him in February 1758 to replace his late son-in-law, and his grave lies in the town's cemetery.
Q 05Jonathan Edwards died in 1758 from what cause, which he had accepted to set an example for others?
A smallpox inoculation
A smallpox inoculation killed him within weeks: a strong supporter of the practice, he took it to encourage others, but his health had never been robust.
Q 06In which Connecticut town did Jonathan Edwards preach Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God on July 8, 1741?
Enfield
Enfield was governed as part of Massachusetts when the sermon was preached: a surveyor's error kept it on the wrong side of the line until 1749.
Q 07Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is often reprinted as the classic example of which style of preaching?
Fire and brimstone
Fire and brimstone became the sermon's label, yet its author also wrote and spoke at length about heaven and angels, themes that are far less remembered.
Q 08Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is the most famous sermon of which colonial American religious revival?
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening swept the American colonies from the 1730s, and this sermon became the standard example used to explain its theology.
Q 09What did the shrieks and cries of the congregation force Jonathan Edwards to do during his most famous sermon?
Stop before the end
Stop before the end: an eyewitness wrote that the moaning of people asking how to be saved grew so loud that the minister had to break off.
Q 10Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God takes its text, a warning that feet will slide, from which Bible book?
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy supplies the verse, a line from the Song of Moses, the poem the Bible places just before Moses' death on Mount Nebo.
Q 11In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which weapon of God's wrath is drawn and aimed at the sinner's heart?
A bow and arrow
A bow and arrow: justice itself strains the string, and the sermon says only an angry God's choice keeps the shaft from being made drunk with blood.
Q 12Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God compares God's wrath to what, rising higher until an outlet is given?
Dammed-up waters
Dammed-up waters is the picture: the longer the stream is held back, the mightier it runs once the floodgate opens, so every day of delay adds to the coming force.
Q 13In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, wickedness makes a sinner as heavy as which metal?
Lead
Q 21In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, all the kings of the earth are as which insects before God?
Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers is the sermon's measure of earthly kings: if subjects dread the anger of an absolute monarch, the argument runs, a far higher King's anger deserves more dread.
Q 22Reverend Stephen Williams left the best-known eyewitness account of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in what?
His diary
His diary records piercing shrieks and cries, then a prayer, a hymn and the cheerful faces of those who found comfort that night.
Q 23Eleazar Wheelock, who prayed after Jonathan Edwards's most famous sermon, later founded which Ivy League college?
Dartmouth
Lead is the comparison: the sinner's own weight drags him towards hell, and his righteousness can no more hold him up than a cobweb could halt a falling rock.
Q 14In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, the sinner hangs by what, with flames ready to burn it apart?
A slender thread
A slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, is all that holds the sinner up, and nothing he has done can persuade God to spare him a moment.
Q 15In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, the waiting devils are compared to which animals watching their prey?
Hungry lions
Hungry lions that see their prey but are kept back is how the sermon pictures the devils, held off only by God's restraining hand.
Q 16Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God tells listeners that nothing lies between them and hell but what?
Thin air
Thin air is all the sermon allows: the pit lies directly below, and only God's power holds the listener up from one moment to the next.
Q 17In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, the unconverted walk over the pit of hell on what?
A rotten covering
A rotten covering, full of weak places nobody can see, is the sermon's picture of ordinary life: good health proves nothing about the next step.
Q 18Which king's furnace, heated seven times hotter, is cited in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?
Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar stoked the furnace for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and the sermon argues that God's wrath will outdo any earthly king's worst.
Q 19Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ends by urging listeners to flee which doomed biblical city?
Sodom
Sodom is the closing image: the last line echoes the angels' order to Lot's family to flee to the hills and not look back.
Q 20Jonathan Edwards's most famous sermon borrows which tool from John the Baptist, laid at the root of the trees?
An axe
An axe laid at the root of the trees, ready to fell any that bears no good fruit, is how the sermon conveys the urgency of the revival season.
Dartmouth grew out of the charity school Eleazar Wheelock ran for Native American pupils, and he named it for the English earl who headed the school's fundraising trust.
Q 24Jonathan Edwards first preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God to his own flock in which Massachusetts town?
Northampton
Northampton was his pulpit for more than two decades, inherited from his grandfather, and it had already seen a revival of its own in the 1730s.
Q 25Which English evangelist toured the American colonies in 1739–40 and preached from Jonathan Edwards's own pulpit?
George Whitefield
George Whitefield moved his host to tears on that visit: Jonathan Edwards wept through the whole service, and revivals soon began to spring up again.
Q 26Jonathan Edwards's theology was rooted in which heritage, exemplified by the Westminster and Savoy Confessions?
Puritan
Puritan heritage shaped his thinking, though he was also a child of the Enlightenment who read the new science and philosophy of his day closely.
Q 27Jonathan Edwards entered which college at just under thirteen, later serving there as a tutor?
Yale
Yale took him in 1716, and he later helped run the college as one of its two tutors during a spell when it had no rector.
Q 28Jonathan Edwards spent the 1750s as a missionary to Native Americans in which Massachusetts frontier town?
Stockbridge
Stockbridge left him time to write the treatises his reputation as a philosopher rests on, while he defended his Housatonic congregation against profiteering officials.
Q 29Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God names which nearby town, where people were flocking to Christ daily?
Suffield
Suffield, just across the river, is the one neighbouring town the sermon names, and the preacher asks his hearers whether their souls are not as precious as those of the people there.
Q 30What heading marks the final section of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, aimed at the listeners?
Application
Application opens by saying the subject is meant to wake the unconverted in the room, and from there the sermon shifts from 'they' to 'you'.